



**% 




■V ... ~-fe «s 





°o /^/t 0°* 




&XS2&J/A o °Jp V" « 




»,' "ft. C 






r "ft 



"V.4 













x* ^Va\V./ ( 











V**v V™/ v™> 



\J 

MARLOWE'S 
EDWARD THE SECOND 



\ -^ 



AND SELECTIONS FROM 

TAMBURLAINE and the POEMS 



EDITED WITH 

NOTES AND INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 



edward t. Mclaughlin 

Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in Yale University 



**MAY 9 1394 J 




WA*H\*> 



/*7^2 



/ 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1894 






.Aife 



Copyright, 1894, 

ny 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 

n - Us-o 



THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
V 



Introduction, ... 

Edward the Second, ..... i 

Selections from Tamburlaine the Great, . .117 

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, . . 136 

Selections from Hero and Leander, . . .137 

Notes, ....... 143 



NOTE. 

The text of this edition is that of Dyce, with a number of 
amended readings. 

The ten acts of Tamburlaine are not sufficiently important 
for ordinary students, and the usual objection to selections from 
a drama does not apply to a play without a plot or development 
of character. Therefore, only the last passages of Marlowe's 
first work are given here ; from their nature they lose little, if 
at all, by detachment. 

Such words and allusions as seem likely to be misunderstood, 
are explained in the notes. Various points of literary interest 
are also suggested, that might escape the attention of unpractised 
readers. These notes are placed by themselves at the end of the 
text, where they will not distract the attention of those who do 
not read them. 



INTRODUCTION. 



i. 

Christopher Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker, 
was born in Canterbury, toward the close of February, 
1564. He was thus two months older than Shake- 
speare. The King's School in his native place afforded 
him a preparation for Cambridge, where he received 
his first degree in 1583. Little is known of his life. 
According to a ballad he became an actor at the 
Curtain, one of the original London theatres. He 
belonged to the literary circle in which Greene, 
Peele, and Nash were prominent, and attracted 
unfavorable attention by skepticism in matters of 
religion. He seems to have been esteemed for liter- 
ary culture as well as for poetry, among the writers of 
his time, but to have secured little reputation for per- 
sonal character. He met his death at the end of 
May, 1593, in a dissipated quarrel. 

His first tragedy, Tamburlaine the Great, was prob- 
ably composed early in 1587. It was soon followed 
by the short play of Dr. Fanstus, a medley of comedy, 
excerpts from the Faust-book, and some magnificent 
passages of verse. The Jew of Malta, interesting to 
the literary student for many reasons, and more dra- 
matic than its predecessors, probably preceded Ediuard 
II., which appeared about 1590. Two fragmentary 



vi n INTRODUCTION. 

dramas of slight merit, some translations from Ovid 
and Lucan, the two first sestiads of Hero and Leander, 
and two or three lyrical pieces constitute the remain- 
der of Marlowe's literary work. 

The spirit of the age, which directs the character of 
a generation's active men, guided the literary genius 
of the later Elizabethans into the drama. Upon 
Marlowe, a man surely at one with his generation, 
dawned, while he was still a youth, the opportunity of 
creating a national theatre, that should be at once 
popular and poetical. Whereupon, with the co-opera- 
tion of a little group of educated and ambitious poets, 
he instituted one of the most influential movements in 
all England's literary history. The national taste for 
stage entertainments was already pronounced before 
the second half of Elizabeth's reign. The miracle 
plays had long been fostering it. The moralities, 
which had grown out of these, by their more studied 
characterization had carried forward the dramatic art, 
clumsy and heavy though their abstract figures were. 
The strolling players, whose best theatre was the 
court of an inn, had enlivened and diversified the 
earlier and more formal acting with farcical comedy 
scenes, or sensational treatment of tales of crime and 
sentiment. At last, theatres had been erected, close 
to the London city limits, and their declamatory and 
rude performances were increasingly regarded. Side 
by side with the plays of the masses, the cultivated 
class w r ere conducting a laborious drama at court, in 
the houses of the nobility, in the lawyers' halls, and 
in the universities, under the influence of Italian and 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

French predecessors, and based upon classical models. 
Such tragedy and comedy as Ferrex and P or rex and 
Ralph Roister Doister are incidents in the English 
renaissance ; attempts to impart new modern life to 
the outworn Plautine and Senecan dramatic forms. 
While of little interest to us, except as material for 
tracing the history of this chapter of culture, these 
early works are sufficiently correct to rank as litera- 
ture. But the combination of antiquity and their 
author's apprentice hand is heavy upon them. 

It was for Marlowe and his fellows to realize a suc- 
cessful blending of these separate histrionic branches ; 
to employ classical training and tastes, and literary 
talent, as ministers of beauty and art, while maintain- 
ing an enlivening and popular treatment of themes 
appropriate to an audience of the people. This two- 
fold influence was the salvation of their enterprise. 
The ambition to please themselves as poets could not 
lead to classically pedantic imitativeness, for it was 
coupled with the ambition to make a practical career 
and a living by pleasing the varied, stormy, impatient, 
yet imaginatively sensitive and responsive audience 
of that great generation so alive to the new powers of 
England, the world, and man. 

The prologue to Tamburlaine has often been quoted, 
as Marlowe's challenge to the playwrights who until 
1587 had supplied the public theatres, and his an- 
nouncement of a formative aim in his own under- 
takings : 

" From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits, 
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, 
We'll lead you to the stately tent of war." 



X INTRODUCTION. 

To appreciate the style that he disdains, we should 
really read old stage manuscripts by the run of hack 
writers which were never printed or preserved. But 
it is sufficient to turn to more literary plays, such as 
Camfyses or Damon and Pythias, or Appius and Vir- 
ginia, for illustrations : 

"Alas, alas ! I do hear tell the king hath killed my son ; 
If it be so, woe worth the deed that ever it was done." 

"As things by their contraries are always best proved, 
How happy then are merciful princes, of their people 
beloved." 

"Well, then, this is my counsel, thus standeth the case, 
Perhaps such a fetch as may please your grace ; 
There is no more ways, but hap or hap not, 
Either hap, or else hapless, to knit up the knot." 

These are ordinary examples of jigging veins of 
rhyme before the smoother couplet that was employed 
by the intermediate playwrights had come in, and 
the phrase " mother wits," no doubt, is a slur upon 
writers without academic advantages. This little 
band of university men felt themselves superior to 
uneducated talent, and one of their sharpest scorns 
at Shakespeare's early successes, toward the close of 
their course, seems to have consisted in the knowl- 
edge that the "upstart crow, beautified with their 
feathers," was not a poet of the schools. 

By the "conceits that clownage keeps in pay," Mar- 
lowe doubtless intended to condemn the early theatre's 
cheap treatment of trivial themes, for which he desired 
to substitute elevated heroics both of substance and 
form. It is hardly correct to apply the phrase to that 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

humor element which, in violation of the classical 
example, the romantic dramatists of Spain and Eng- 
land introduced into their tragedies, and which forms 
a distinct influence in their superiority to the more con- 
servative tragedy of Italy and France. Indeed, the 
publisher's introduction to the edition of Tamburlaine 
of 1592 explains that " fond and frivolous gestures" 
were omitted in the printing. From Faustus many 
similar crudities were not stricken, and they constantly 
aggravate the sensational plot in the second half of 
The Jew of Malta. It may well be a question, how- 
ever, how far these parts belong to Marlowe, or how 
far they are to be regarded as the work of other, and 
usually later, writers. His own tastes were probably 
serious. 

But of the declarations of principle in those first 
three lines of the Tamburlaine prologue — heroic 
themes, dignity of treatment, scholarly work, and 
metre neither trivial nor in rhyme — the last was the 
most important. As yet, no one had employed blank 
verse with success. Before the close of the reign of 
Henry VIII. the Earl of Surrey's translation of two 
books of Vergil had introduced it. In Ferrex and 
Porrex (156 1) the new verse had been applied to the 
courtly drama, and subsequently it formed the metre 
of other similar plays. All these treatments were stiff 
and lumbering, for the genius of the movement had 
not yet been caught. It is Marlowe's highest distinc- 
tion that he found it out. We may profitably com- 
pare our own blank verse with the assonance and 
intertwisted rhyme of the Spanish drama, and the 
Alexandrines of the French, and observe its minimized 



xil INTRODUCTION. 

restriction of form upon expression and its greater 
resemblance to the sound of real life, at the same time 
that it affords, through its flexibility, a constantly vary- 
ing metrical accompaniment, quiet in simple tones, yet 
with no peer for sublimity and passion. Now that 
this verse has proved itself the English metre, Mar- 
lowe's part in its evolution seems nothing wonderful ; 
evidently it would have been developed soon, though 
he had missed its secret. Yet no other poet was 
equally well prepared to teach the new measure. His 
remarkable faculty in the musical control of words, 
and his intensity and power, made a creation out of 
the formerly inert line. His versification, to be sure, 
marks the experimenter, yet in passages it may rank 
near the work of his best successors. All the more 
noteworthy his innovation appears, when we recall his 
skill in rhyme. One is tempted to say that in Mar- 
lowe English rhyme finds its most bewitching tones. 

To his dramatic reforms, however, he brought no 
cold correctness. A temperament such as his felt 
little congeniality with severe classical repression. 
Impulses controlled him, and words came but too 
readily. Especially in his average speeches there is 
an excess of declamation. Lamb, who gave even 
undue praise to one scene in Edward II., and who 
certainly in this quotation pressed to the opposite 
extreme, declared that he found difficulty "in culling 
a few sane lines " from Tamburlaine. Impulses indeed 
controlled him, and splendid sensations. The praise 
of Drayton holds good ; he " had in him brave trans- 
lunary things," and 

" That fine madness still he did retain, 

Which rightly should possess a poet's brain." 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

Had other elements of genius possessed his brain 
equally, the result would have been less imperfect. 
We must follow with Sainte-Beuve ; the greatest poets 
are never a distracted rout, running headlong, as in 
the chase. <l Nay, tradition tells us, and our own 
trained nature says it louder still, reason must always 
control, even among imagination's elect favourites; or 
if not always controlling, if impulse is allowed sudden 
sway, reason is never far off, is at hand, smiling, as it 
awaits the approaching moment of return." It was 
not without meaning that Marlowe substituted for the 
wiser ancient allegory, his fancy that Beauty is mother 
of the Muses. Even in a contrast between his Hero 
and Leander and the Greek poem which inspired it, 
while we feel the great superiority of the modern poet 
as regards genius, we can hardly fail to recognize de- 
ficiency in those qualities of proportion, selection, 
artistic reserve, that are suggested by Lamb's phrase — 
"the sanity of true genius." 

Marlowe is the poet of an era of discovery. He 
desires to attain, with a superb exhilaration in the 
thought of acquisition. Tamburlaine must conquer 
the world, Barabas amasses unlimited wealth, Faustus 
would exhaust pleasure. He will not afford us the 
subtle, tender pensiveness that is nowadays expected 
from poets, nor has he moral strength, or entirely co- 
herent thought. Mr. William Watson, who not with- 
out success has made a specialty of literary criticism 
in verse, has composed a quatrain on Tamburlaine : 
" Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakespeare's ope. 

How welcome — after gong and cymbal's din — 

The continuity, the long slow slope 

And vast curves of the gradual violin." 



X IV IN TROD UCTION. 

Ah, there is something more than "gong and cymbal's 
din" in the work that includes those lines on beauty, 
or those on the soul's restless climbing after knowl- 
edge. This poet saw ideas as beauty, and in some of 
his pictures we ourselves yet see them so. He heard 
ideas in rhythm, and their sound is yet strong and 
clear. He arouses sensations in us : there is more of 
the trumpet than of gong and cymbal, when at times 
he thrills us with the feeling of himself. For even 
though we never care to imitate his experiences, it is 
unfortunate to miss the observation of such suscepti- 
bility to beauty, that is moved by the simple fact of 
human loveliness ; or the force and energy which are 
a spectacle in themselves, though they had accom- 
plished nothing. Marlowe's frequent emptiness of 
substance and his various defects need not deprive 
us of magical moments as we read him — unless we are 
sophisticated. 

Aside from his strength and raptures, he must have 
had his quiet hours. He is capable of tones calm and 
pensive. The youth who wrote The Passionate Shep- 
herd to his Love could do more than declaim, and 
knew rest as well as rapture of imagination. That 
line from Faustus, 

44 When I behold the heavens, then I repent," 

shows that he felt the stars ; while another, 

44 All things that move between the quiet poles," 

for its very repression may be counted — with how 
many more of his lines — among the firmest and most 
suggestive of Elizabethan poetry. Some of his adjec- 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

tives stand for little reveries. There is a suggestive- 
ness imaginative, and anything but turbulent, in such 
similes as these : 

" But now, Orcanes, view my royal host, 
That hides these plains, and seems as vast and wide, 
As doth the desert of Arabia 
To those that stand on Bagdet's lofty tower ; 
Or as the ocean , to the traveller 
That rests upon the snowy Apennines." 

It is perhaps only a personal accident that for years 
this Bagdet tower has been before my eyes, distinct, 
mysterious, with motionless figures at its top, gazing 
over the desert. These and some other of his similes 
are what we think of as Miltonic. With all his dif- 
fuseness, he is often compressed and vivid : 

" A hell as hopeless and as full of fear 
As are the blasted banks of Erebus." 

Subtle imaginations haunt him. So the fascination in 
Coleridge's thought of great ocean solitudes nev.er 
intruded on — 

" We were the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea " — 

had been felt by the poet of Tamburlaine. 

' ' Where raging Lantchidol 
Beats on the regions with his boisterous blows, 
That never seaman yet discovered." 

There is an interest in contemplating the possible 
career, had they been spared to the full expression of 
their powers, of " the inheritors of unfulfilled renown." 
The fact that Marlowe and Shakespeare were almost 



I 

XVI INTRODUCTION. 

precisely of an age, and our knowledge that had the 
latter also died in 1593 his ascertained work would 
hardly be ated as equal with Marlowe's remains, 
naturally di: cts one to Marlowe's future if he had 
lived. The course of his work seems to have been 
encouraging, if we close it with Ethuard II. But his 
creative skill and enthusiasm apparently reached its 
height some time before his death. The moral disorders 
into which he fell appear to have been associated with 
recklessness of temper and a harsh intellectual inde- 
pendence, of ill augury for his development. He 
might, surely, have applied himself once more to 
serious work. Yet even with a renewal of ambition 
and industry, Shakespearian success in drama would 
still have been unsure. Compared with his imagina- 
tive gifts, one must recognize a deficiency in thought- 
fulness. There are, indeed, brilliant ideas here and 
there ; for instance, the account of Hell as a state of 
mind instead of place. So, Hero and Leander exhibits 
no little mental nimbleness, and in at least three of his 
characters we feel impressive intellectual conceptions. 
Yet it remains true that we miss the pervasive intellec- 
tual seriousness that seems essential to a profound and 
broad exposition of human nature. Then, too (in 
spite of Mr. Swinburne's allusion to those who dis- 
parage Marlowe's dramatic technique as "sciolists and 
pretenders to criticism"), we must question whether 
he was eminently gifted in construction. In the faculty 
of humor, again, with all its genial contributions to 
drama of contrast, relief, range of portraiture — nor less, 
with its critical restraint upon exaggeration and ex- 
travagance in both content and form — Marlowe has nQ 



I 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

inferior. Consequently his individuals are wanting in 
flexibility and ease, his groups lack variety, and, while 
at his rare jests we may not smile, we sometimes smile 
where he had no thought of jesting. His personal 
immoralities of conduct, too, are suggested by the un- 
moral tendencies of his characterisation. In most un- 
happy contrast with Shakespeare, his masterpieces are 
bad characters. With the exception of Kent (a faint 
figure after all), he has left us no morally attractive 
man. Nor did he ever sketch an interesting woman 
For Zenocrate and Abigail, so far as dramatic quality 
goes, are shadows, and Isabel is drawn in uncertain 
and, on the whole, unpleasant lines. Yet, unless I mis- 
take, the mention of these names (and perhaps even 
more the mention of Helen, who only passes across 
his stage, and that silently) will arouse a poetical sen- 
sation in any who have come under the Marlowe spell. 
For although only minor creations, they still are surely 
heroines of that dim, dreamy grove where the ladies of 
romance are beautiful forever. Zenocrate, indeed is 
but a word, yet how ardently and tenderly he caresses 
it. She means nothing to our intelligence, yet in the 
silence of her solemn evening walk" her beauty and 
tears have the charm of romance. So, too, in the 
effect of such lines as these of Helen : 

" Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air, 
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ; " 

and these of Hero : 

"At Sestos Hero dwelt, Hero the fair. 
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair ; " 



xvi li INTRODUCTION. 

and this of Abigail : 

" The sweetest flower in Cytherea's field." 

I never recall such scenes as the introduction of 
Helen, without regretting that contemporary influences 
could not have directed Marlowe to narrative poetry, 
instead of to the drama, for he felt poetic exteriors, 
he seldom penetrated. It is necessary for the dram- 
atist to conceive his characters complexly ; without 
an inner vision of his men and women, his work will 
appear shallow and tame. The narrative poet, how- 
ever, requires less depth and range in characteriza- 
tion. His descriptive faculty informs the reader of a 
few salient traits, and there is persuasiveness in his 
personal enthusiasm. He may describe impressions, 
present pictures, and linger over artistic details. 
When he chooses to allow his characters to explain 
their own state of mind, only in form is the narration 
transferred. So, the concluding speech of Faustus 
could occur in an epic quite as well as in a play, and 
the epic note is to be detected in most of Marlowe's 
impressive passages. He was susceptible to moods, 
rather than to situations. His spirit was too individual 
for the drama. He liked one hero, a man among 
pigmies. The pictures in his dialogue, the rhapsodies, 
the towering comparisons, his fondness for an almost 
lyrical intermezzo, his delight in purely musical effects 
of turn and refrain and sounding names, the stray 
phrases that bespeak the author, rather than the char- 
acters who utter them, seem of the poem, rather than 
of the play. 

Not but that Marlowe gives brilliant proofs of dra- 



IN TROD UC 7 'ION. x IX 

matic faculty. The earlier part of The Jeiv of Malta 
is certainly strong, aside from its poetry. And Faustus 
is dramatic, although in conception it is almost a 
monodrama — a soul confronted with itself and with 
the mysteries of Good and Evil that solicit it. How 
well he could plan and conduct a stage situation will 
be manifest more than once to the readers of Edward 
II. The point is simply this : Marlowe seems pri- 
marily a poet. The chronology of his works shows 
how he schooled himself from the epic to the dramatic 
standpoint. What impresses us first of all in an ideal 
play, is its effect as a whole ; afterwards, we dwell on 
its single characters and details. Whereas, instead of 
being a little temple, perfect first as architecture, and 
then in its separate pillars and images, which are per- 
fect in relation as well as individually, our principal 
impression in Marlowe's best play is of one figure, 
one column. 

Marlowe was neither great enough nor small enough 
for poetic realism. He was best fitted for anachronistic 
heroics. Something of modern mystery, restlessness, 
and spiritual daring, something of universal passion 
and beauty, the new world's romantic genius made 
more effective by some certain allegiance to classical 
forms of the literary art, would have been traits in any 
elaborate study that he might have made in pure 
poetry. Despite his exuberances and rantings he 
knew the art of style, and that too not merely in color 
and magic, but sometimes in a more sober way. Occa- 
sionally he astonishes us by his creative appreciation 
of the lettered past. He loved the richness and detail 
of epic imagery. Ancient mythology could inspire 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

him. He caught his fine manner from his models, 
and notwithstanding a boyish turn for grandiloquence, 
he was often rightly grandiose. With what noble 
dignity he invokes the invisible powers : 

" Open, thou shining veil of Cynthia, 
And make a passage from the empyreal Heaven, 
That he that sits on high and never sleeps, 
Nor in one place is circumscriptible, 
But everywhere fills every continent 
With strange infusion of his sacred vigour." 

Again, such lines as these, the dying apostrophe of 
a royal captive, though ill-pitched for dramatic suc- 
cess, are fine heroics : 

" O, highest lamp of ever-living Jove, 
Accursed day ! infected with my griefs, 
Hide now thy stained face in endless night, 
And shut the windows of the lightsome Heavens ! 
Let ugly Darkness with her rusty coach, 
Engirt with tempests, wrapt in pitchy clouds, 
Smother the earth with never-fading mists ! 

Then let the stony dart of senseless cold 

Pierce through the centre of my withered heart." 

Nevertheless, Marlowe was chosen to be a drama- 
tist, and as such he accomplished eminent results. 
Tamburlaine set the example of stirring plays that 
should also belong to accurate and beautiful literature, 
Faustus was admired by the Goethe of a greater Faust. 
The Jeiu of Malta and Edward II. were looked up 
to, and echoed by Shakespeare, in his thirties. As 
one writes the titles, that Marlowe-spell already named 
comes over one. It was mainly the lack of a higher 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

gift of character, so we may judge, that prevented 
Marlowe from standing where our sympathies would 
place him. The fact that he came in the van of our 
dramatists must not unduly exalt him : ./Eschylus, 
Dante, Chaucer in his typical work, led the way, too. 
Yet, even at the coldest estimate, he is a great dramatic 
forerunner, and one of the world's great poets. For 
he had the sensation of beauty and power, and an 
energy rare even in genius. He was endowed with 
poetic speech. And, as Arnold wrote of Byron, 
though he teaches us little, we feel him. We feel 
him as a swift glory of poetry and passion, a twofold 
nature of grace and splendid, even if unordered, 
strength. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



King Edward the Second. 
Prince Edward his son, afterwards 

King Edward the Third. 
Kent, Edmund, Earl of, brother to 

King Edward the Second. 
Gaveston. 

Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Bishop of Coventry. 
Bishop of Winchester. 
Warwick. 
Lancaster. 
Pembroke. 
Arundel. 
Leicester. 
Berkeley. 
Mortimer the elder. 
Mortimer the younger, his nephew. 
Spenser the elder. 
Spenser the younger, his son. 
Baldock. 
Beaumont. 



Trussel. 

Gurney. 

Matrevis. 

Lightborn. 

Sir John of Hainault. 

Levune. 

Rice ap Howel. 

Mayor of Bristow. 

Abbot. 

Monks. 

Herald. 

Lords, Poor Men, James, Mower, 

Champion, Messengers, Soldiers, 

and Attendants. 

Queen Isabella, wife to King Ed- 
ward the Second. 

Niece to King Edward the Second, 
daughter to the Duke of Gloces- 
ter. 

Ladies. 



ACT I. 



London, a street. 



Scene I. 
Enter Gaveston, reading a letter. 



Gav. My father is deceased ! Come, Gaveston, 
And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend. 
Ah, words that make me surfeit with delight ! 
What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston, 
Than live and be the favourite of a king ! 5 

Sweet prince, I come ! these, these thy amorous lines 



2 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Might have enforc'd me to have swum from Fiance, 

And like Leander, gasp'd upon the sand, 

So thou would'st smile, and take me in thine arms. 

The sight of London to my exil'd eyes 10 

Is as Elysium toa new-come soul ; 

Not that I love the city, or the men, 

But that it harbours him I hold so dear, — 

The king, upon whose bosom let me lie, 

And with the world be still at enmity. 15 

What need the arctic people love star-light, 

To whom the sun shines both by day and night? 

Farewell base stooping to the lordly peers ! 

My knee shall bow to none but to the king. 

As for the multitude, that are but sparks, 20 

Rak'd up in embers of their poverty, — 

Tanti, — I'll fawn first on the wind 

That glanceth at my lips, and flieth away. 

Enter three Poor Men. 

But how now ! what are these ? 

Poor Men. Such as desire your worship's service. 

Gav. What canst thou do ? 26 

First P. Man. I can ride. 

Gav. But I have no horse. — What art thou ? 

Sec. P. Man. A traveller. 

Gav. Let me see — thou wouldst do well 30 

To wait at my trencher, and tell me lies at dinner- 
time ; 
And, as I like your discoursing, I'll have you. — 
And what art thou ? 



ACT I. SCENE I. 3 

Third P. Man. A soldier, that hath serv'd against 
the Scot. 

Gav. Why, there are hospitals for such as you ; 
I have no war ; and therefore, sir, be gone. 36 

Third P. Man. Farewell, and perish by a soldier's 
hand, 
That wouldst reward them with an hospital. 

Gav. Ay, ay, these words of his move me as much 
As if a goose should play the porcupine, 40 

And dart her plumes, thinking to pierce my breast. 
But yet it is no pain to speak men fair ; 
I'll flatter these, and make them live in hope. [Aside. 
You know that I came lately out of France, 
And yet I have not view'd my lord the king ; 45 

If I speed well, I'll entertain you all. 

All. We thank your worship. 

Gav. I have some business. Leave me to myself. 

All. We will wait here about the court. 

Gav. Do. [Exeunt Poor Men. 

These are not men for me; 51 

I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, 
Musicians, that with touching of a string 
May draw the pliant king which way I please. 
Music and poetry is his delight ; 55 

Therefore I'll have Italian masques by night, 
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows ; 
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad, 
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad ; 
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, 60 

Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay ; 



4 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape, 

With hair that gilds the water as it glides, 

Crownets of pearl about his naked arms, 

And in his sportful hands an olive-tree, 65 

Shall bathe him in a spring ; and there, hard by, 

One like Actaeon, peeping through the grove, 

Shall by the angry goddess be transform'd, 

And running in the likeness of an hart, 

By yelping hounds pull'd down, shall seem to die : 70 

Such things as these best please his majesty. — 

Here comes my lord the king, and the nobles from 
the Parliament. I'll stand aside. [Retires. 

Enter King Edward, Lancaster, the elder Morti- 
mer, the younger Mortimer, Kent, Warwick, 
Pembroke, and Attendants. 

K. Edw. Lancaster ! 

Lan. My Lord. 75 

Gav. That Earl of Lancaster do I abhor. [Aside. 

K. Edw. Will you not grant me this ? — In spite of 
them 
I'll have my will ; and these two Mortimers, 
That cross me thus, shall know I am displeas'd. [Aside. 

E. Mor. If you love us, my lord, hate Gaveston. 

Gav. That villain Mortimer ! I'll be his death. 

[Aside. 

Y. Mor. Mine uncle here, this earl, and I myself, 
Were sworn to your father at his death, 
That he should ne'er return into the realm : 
And know, my lord, ere I will break my oath, 85 

This sword of mine, that should offend your foes, 



ACT /. SCENE I. 5 

Shall sleep within the scabbard at thy need, 
And underneath thy banners march who will, 
For Mortimer will hang his armour up. 

Gav. Mart dieu ! [Aside. 

K. Edw. Well, Mortimer, I'll make thee rue these 
words : 9 1 

Beseems it thee to contradict thy king ? 
Frown'st thou thereat, aspiring Lancaster ? 
The sword shall plane the furrows of thy brows, 
And hew these knees that now are grown so stiff. 95 
I will have Gaveston ; and you shall know 
What danger 'tis to stand against your king. 

Gav. Well done, Ned ! [Aside. 

Lan. My lord, why do you thus incense your peers, 
That naturally would love and honour you, 100 

But for that base and obscure Gaveston ? 
Four earldoms have I, besides Lancaster — 
Derby, Salisbury, Lincoln, Leicester ; 
These will I sell, to give my soldiers pay, 
Ere Gaveston shall stay within the realm ; 105 

Therefore, if he be come, expel him straight. 

Kent. Barons and earls, your pride hath made me 
mute ; 
But now I'll speak, and to the proof, I hope. 
I do remember, in my father's days, 
Lord Percy of the North, being highly mov'd, no 
Braved Mowbray in presence of the king ; 
For which, had not his highness lov'd him well, 
He should have lost his head ; but with his look 
Th' undaunted spirit of Percy was appeas'd, 
And Mowbray and he were reconcil'd : 115 



6 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Yet dare you brave the king unto his face. — 
Brother, revenge it, and let these their heads 
Preach upon poles, for trespass of their tongues. 

War. O, our heads ! 

K. Edw. Ay, yours ; and therefore I would wish 
you grant. 120 

War. Bridle thy anger, gentle Mortimer. 

Y. Mor. I cannot, nor I will not ; I must speak. — 
Cousin, our hands I hope shall fence our heads, 
And strike off his that makes you threaten us. — 
Come, uncle, let us leave the brain-sick king, 125 

And henceforth parley with our naked swords. 

E. Mor. Wiltshire hath men enough to save our 
heads. 

War. All Warwickshire will love him for my sake. 

Lan. And northward Gaveston hath many friends. — 
Adieu, my lord ; and either change your mind, 130 
Or took to see the throne, where you should sit, 
To float in blood, and at thy wanton head 
The glozing head of thy base minion thrown. 

[Exeunt all except King Edward, 
Kent, Gaveston, and Attendants. 

K. Edw. I cannot brook these haughty menaces ; 
Am I a king, and must be over-rul'd ? — 135 

Brother, display my ensigns in the field ; 
I'll bandy with the barons and the earls, 
And either die or live with Gaveston. 

Gav. I can no longer keep me from my lord. 

[ Comes forward. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 7 

K. Edw. What, Gaveston ! welcome ! Kiss not 
my hand ; 140 

Embrace me, Gaveston, as I do thee. 
Why shouldst thou kneel ? know'st thou not who I am ? 
Thy friend, thyself, another Gaveston ! 
Not Hylas was more mourned for of Hercules, 
Than thou hast been of me since thy exile. 145 

Gav. And since I went from hence, no soul in hell 
Hath felt more torment than poor Gaveston. 

K. Ediv. I know it. — Brother, welcome home my 
friend. — 
Now let the treacherous Mortimers conspire, 
And that high-minded Earl of Lancaster : 150 

I have my wish, in that I joy thy sight ; 
And sooner shall the sea o'erwhelm my land, 
Than bear the ship that shall transport thee hence. 
I here create thee Lord High-chamberlain, 
Chief Secretary to the state and me, 155 

Earl of Cornwall, King and Lord of Man. 

Gav. My lord, these titles far exceed my worth. 

Kent. Brother, the least of these may well suffice 
For one of greater birth than Gaveston. 

K. Edw. Cease, brother : for I cannot brook these 
words. — 160 

Thy worth, sweet friend, is far above my gifts, 
Therefore, to equal it, receive my heart. 
If for these dignities thou be envied, 
I'll give thee more ; for, but to honour thee, 
Is Edward pleas'd with kingly regiment. 165 

Fear'st thou thy person ? thou shalt have a guard : 
Wantest thou gold ? go to my treasury : 



8 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Wouldst thou be lov'd and fear'd ? receive my seal, 

Save or condemn, and in our name command 

What so thy mind affects, or fancy likes. 170 

Gav. It shall suffice me to enjoy your love ; 
Which whiles I have, I think myself as great 
As Caesar riding in the Roman street, 
With captive kings at his triumphant car. 

Enter the Bishop of Coventry. 

K. Edw. Whither goes my lord of Coventry so 
fast ? 175 

Bish. of Cov. To celebrate your father's exequies. 
But is that wicked Gaveston return'd ? 

K. Edw. Ay, priest, and lives to be reveng'd on 
thee, 
That wert the only cause of his exile. 

Gav. 'Tis true ; and, but for reverence of these 
robes, 180 

Thou shouldst not plod one foot beyond this place. 

Bish. of Cov. I did no more than I was bound to 
do ; 
And, Gaveston, unless thou be reclaim'd, 
As then I did incense the parliament, 
So will I now, and thou shalt back to France. 185 

Gav. Saving your reverence, you must pardon me. 

K. Edw. Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole, 
And in the channel christen him anew. 

Kent. Ah, brother, lay not violent hands on him, 
For he'll complain unto the see of Rome. 190 

Gav. Let him complain unto the see of hell : 
I'll be reveng'd on him for my exile. 



ACT I. SCENE II. 9 

K. Edw. No, spare his life, but seize upon his 
goods : 
Be thou lord bishop and receive his rents, 
And make him serve thee as thy chaplain : 195 

I give him thee ; here, use him as thou wilt. 

Gav. He shall to prison, and there die in bolts. 
K. Edw. Ay, to the Tower, the Fleet, or where 

thou wilt. 
Bisk, of Cov. For this offence, be thou accurs'd 

of God ! 
K. Edw. Who's there ? Convey this priest to the 
Tower. 200 

Bisk, of Cov. True, true. 

K. Edw. But in the mean time, Gaveston, away, 
And take possession of his house and goods. 
Come, follow me, and thou shalt have my guard 
To see it done, and bring thee safe again. 205 

Gav. What should a priest do with so fair a house ? 
A prison may beseem his holiness. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. London, near the King's Palace. 

Enter, o?i one side the elder Mortimer and the younger 
Mortimer ; on the other, Warwick and Lan- 
caster. 

War. 'Tis true : the bishop is in the Tower, 
And goods and body given to Gaveston. 

Lan. What ! will they tyrannize upon the church ? 
Ah, wicked king ! accursed Gaveston ! 
This ground, which is corrupted with their steps, 5 
Shall be their timeless sepulchre or mine. 



IO EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Y. Mor. Well, let that peevish Frenchman guard 
him sure ; 
Unless his breast be sword-proof, he shall die. 

E. Mor. How now, why droops the Earl of Lan- 
caster ? 

Y. Mor. Wherefore is Guy of Warwick dis- 
content ? 10 
Lan. That villain Gaveston is made an earl. 
E. Mor. An earl ! 

War. Ay, and besides Lord-chamberlain of the 
realm, 
And Secretary too, and Lord of Man. 

E. Mor. We may not nor we will not suffer this. 
Y. Mor. Why post we not from hence to levy 
men? 16 

Lan. " My Lord of Cornwall," now at every word ; 
And happy is the man whom he vouchsafes, 
For vailing of his bonnet, one good look. 
Thus, arm in arm, the king and he doth march : 20 
Nay more, the guard upon his lordship waits, 
And all the court begins to flatter him. 

War. Thus leaning on the shoulder of the king, 
He nods, and scorns, and smiles at those that pass. 
E. Mor. Doth no man take exceptions at the 
slave ? 25 

Lan. All stomach him, but none dare speak a 

word. 
Y. Mor. Ah, that bewrays their baseness, Lan- 
caster. 
Were all the earls and barons of my mind, 



ACT I. SCENE II. II 

We'd hale him from the bosom of the king, 

And at the court-gate hang the peasant up ; 30 

Who, swoln with venom of ambitious pride, 

Will be the ruin of the realm and us. 

War. Here comes my lord of Canterbury's grace. 

Lan. His countenance bewrays he is displeas'd. 

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and an 
Attendant. 

Archb. of Cant. First were his sacred garments 
rent and torn, 35 

Then laid they violent hands upon him ; next 
Himself imprison'd, and his goods asseiz'd : 
This certify the Pope ; — away, take horse. 

[Exit Attendant. 

Lan. My lord, will you take arms against the king? 

Archb. of Cant. What need I ? God himself is up 

in arms, 40 

When violence is offer'd to the church. 

Y. Mor. Then will you join with us, that be his 
peers, 
To banish or behead that Gaveston ? 

Archb. of Cant. What else, my lords ? for it con- 
cerns me near ; — 
The bishoprick of Coventry is his. 45 

Enter Queen Isabella. 

Y. Mor. Madam, whither walks your majesty so 
fast ? 

Q. Isab. Unto the forest, gentle Mortimer, 
To live in grief and baleful discontent ; 



12 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

For now my lord the king regards me not, 

But dotes upon the love of Gaveston : 50 

He claps his cheeks, and hangs about his neck, 

Smiles in his face, and whispers in his ears ; 

And when I come he frowns, as who should say, 

u Go whither thou wilt, seeing I have Gaveston." 

E. Mor. Is it not strange, that he is thus bewitch'd ? 

Y. Mor. Madam, return unto the court again : 56 
That sly inveigling Frenchman we'll exile, 
Or lose our lives ; and yet ere that day come 
The king shall lose his crown ; for we have power, 
And courage too, to be reveng'd at full. 60 

Archb. of Cant. But yet lift not your swords against 
the king. 

Lan. No ; but we will lift Gaveston from hence. 

War. And war must be the means, or he'll stay 
still. 

Q. Isab. Then let him stay ; for rather than my 
lord 
Shall be oppress'd with civil mutinies, 65 

I will endure a melancholy life, 
And let him frolic with his minion. 

Archb. of Cant. My lords, to ease all this, but hear 
me speak : 
We and the rest, that are his counsellors, 
Will meet, and with a general consent 70 

Confirm his banishment with our hands and seals. 

Lan. What we confirm the king will frustrate. 

- Y. Mor. Then may we lawfully revolt from him. 



ACT I. SCENE IV. i$ 

War. But say, my lord, where shall this meeting be ? 
Archb. of Cant. At the New Temple. 75 

Y. Mor. Content. 

Archb. of Cant. And, in the mean time, I'll entreat 
you all 
To cross to Lambeth, and there stay with me. 
Lan. Come then, let's away. 
Y. Mor. Madam, farewell ! 

Q. /sab. Farewell, sweet Mortimer ; and, for my 
sake, 80 

Forbear to levy arms against the king. 

Y. Mor. Ay, if words will serve ; if not, I must. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene III. London, a street. 

Enter Gaveston and Kent. 

Gav. Edmund, the mighty prince of Lancaster, 
That hath more earldoms than an ass can bear, 
And both the Mortimers, two goodly men, 
With Guy of Warwick, that redoubted knight, 
Are gone toward Lambeth : there let them remain. 5 

[Exeunt. 

Scene IV. London, the New Temple. 

Enter Lancaster, Warwick, Pembroke, the elder 
Mortimer, the younger Mortimer, the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and Attendants. 

Lan. Here is the form of Gaveston's exile : 
May it please your lordship to subscribe your name. 



14 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Archb. of Cant. Give me the paper. 

\He subscribes, as the others do after him. 
Lan. Quick, quick, my lord ; I long to write my 

name. 
War. But I long more to see him banish'd hence. 5 
Y. Mor. The name of Mortimer shall fright the 
king, 
Unless he be declin'd from that base peasant. 

Enter King Edward, Gaveston, and Kent. 

K. Edw. What, are you mov'd that Gaveston sits 
here ? 
It is our pleasure ; we will have it so. 

La?i. Your grace doth well to place him by your 
side, 10 

For no where else the new earl is so safe. 

E. Mor. What man of noble birth can brook this 
sight ? 
Quam male convenhmt ! — 
See what a scornful look the peasant casts ! 

Pern. Can kingly lions fawn on creeping ants ? 15 

War. Ignoble vassal, that like Phaeton 
Aspir'st unto the guidance of the sun. 

Y. Mor. Their downfall is at hand, their forces 
down : 
We will not thus be fac'd and over-peer'd. 

K. Edw. Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer ! 20 

E. Mor. Lay hands on that traitor Gaveston ! 

Kent. Is this the duty that you owe your king ? 

War. We know our duties : let him know his peers. 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 15 

K. Edw. Whither will you bear him ? stay, or ye 

shall die. 
E. Mor. We are no traitors ; therefore threaten 
not. 25 

Gav. No, threaten not, my lord, but pay them home. 

Were I a king 

Y. Mor. Thou villain, wherefore talk'st thou of a 
king, 
Thou hardly art a gentleman by birth ? 

K. Edw. Were he a peasant, being my minion, 30 
I'll make the proudest of you stoop to him. 

Lan. My lord, you may not thus disparage us. — 
Away, I say, with hateful Gaveston. 
E. Mort. And with the Earl of Kent that favours 
him. 

[Attendants remove Gaveston and Kent. 
K. Edw. Nay, then, lay violent hands upon your 

king ; 35 

Here, Mortimer, sit thou in Edward's throne ; 
Warwick and Lancaster, wear you my crown. 
Was ever king thus over-rul'd as I ? 

Lan. Learn then to rule us better, and the realm. 
Y. Mor. What we have done our heart -blood shall 
maintain. 40 

War. Think you that we can brook this upstart's 

pride ? 
K. Edw. Anger and wrathful fury stops my speech. 
Archb. of Cant. Why are you mov'd ? be patient, 
my lord, 
And see what we your counsellors have done. 



1 6 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Y. Mor. My lords, now let us all be resolute, 45 
And either have our wills or lose our lives. 

K. Edw. Meet you for this, proud over-daring 
peers ? 
Ere my sweet Gaveston shall part from me, 
This isle shall fleet upon the ocean, 
And wander to the unfrequented Inde. 50 

Archb. of Cant. You know that I am legate to the 
Pope ; 
On your allegiance to the see of Rome, 
Subscribe, as we have done, to his exile. 

Y. Mor. Curse him, if he refuse ; and then may we 
Depose him, and elect another king. 55 

K. Edw. Ay, there it goes ! but yet I will not yield : 
Curse me, depose me, do the worst you can. 

Lan. Then linger not, my lord, but do it straight. 

Archb. of Cant. Remember how the bishop was 
abus'd ! 
Either banish him that was the cause thereof, 60 

Or I will presently discharge these lords 
Of duty and allegiance due to thee. 

K. Edw. It boots me not to threat ; I must speak 
fair : \ A side. 

The legate of the Pope will be obey'd. 
My lord, you shall be Chancellor of the realm ; 65 
Thou, Lancaster, High-Admiral of our fleet ; 
Young Mortimer and his uncle shall be earls ; 
And you, Lord Warwick, President of the North ; 
And thou of Wales. If this content you not, 
Make several kingdoms of this monarchy, 70 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 17 

And share it equally amongst you all, 
So I may have some nook or corner left, 
To frolic with my dearest Gaveston. 

Archb. of Cant. Nothing shall alter us ; — we are 
resolv'd. 

Lan. Come, come, subscribe. 75 

Y. Mor. Why should you love him whom the 
world hates so ? 

K. Edw. Because he loves me more than all the 
world. 
Ah, none but rude and savage-minded men 
Would seek the ruin of my Gaveston ! 
You that be noble-born should pity him. 80 

War. You that are princely-born should shake 
him off ; 
For shame, subscribe, and let the lown depart. 

E. Mor. Urge him, my lord. 

Archb. of Cant. Are you content to banish him the 

realm ? 
K. Edw. I see I must, and therefore am content : 
Instead of ink I'll write it with my tears. [Subscribes. 
Y. Mor. The king is love-sick for his minion. 
K. Edw. Tis done : and now, accursed hand, fail 

off! 
Lan. Give it me : I'll have it publish'd in the 

streets. 
Y. Mor. I'll see him presently despatch'd away. 
Archb. of Cant. Now is my heart at ease. 
War. And so is mine. 91 



1 8 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Pern. This will be good news to the common 
sort. 

E, Mor. Be it or no, he shall not linger here. 

[Exeunt all except King Edward. 

K. Ediv. How fast they run to banish him I love ! 
They would not stir, were it to do me good. 95 

Why should a king be subject to a priest? 
Proud Rome, that hatchest such imperial grooms, 
With these thy superstitious taper-lights, 
Wherewith thy antichristian churches blaze, 
I'll fire thy crazed buildings, and enforce 100 

The papal towers to kiss the lowly ground ! 
With slaughter'd priests make Tiber's channel swell, 
And banks rais'd higher with their sepulchres ! 
As for the peers, that back the clergy thus, 
If 1 be king, not one of them shall live. 105 

Re-enter Gaveston. 

Gav. My lord, I hear it whisper'd everywhere, 
That I am banish'd, and must fly the land. 

K. Edw. 'Tis true, sweet Gaveston — O, were it 
false ! 
The legate of the Pope will have it so, 
And thou must hence, or I shall be depos'd. no 

But I will reign to be reveng'd of them ; 
And therefore, sweet friend, take it patiently. 
Live where thou wilt, I'll send thee gold enough ; 
And long thou shalt not stay ; or if thou dost, 
I'll come to thee ; my love shall ne'er decline. 115 

Gav. Is all my hope turn'd to this hell of grief ? 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 19 

K. Ediv. Rend not my heart with thy too-piercing 
words : 
Thou from this land, I from myself am banish'd. 

Gav. To go from hence grieves not poor Gaveston; 
But to forsake you, in whose gracious looks 120 

The blessedness of Gaveston remains ; 
For no where else seeks he felicity. 

K. Ediv. And only this torments my wretched soul, 
That, whether I will or no, thou must depart. 
Be governor of Ireland in my stead, 125 

And there abide till fortune call thee home. 
Here, take my picture, and let me wear thine ; 

[ They exchange pictures. 
O, might I keep thee here as I do this, 
Happy were I ! but now most miserable. 

Gav. 'Tis something to be pitied of a king. 130 

K. Edw. Thou shalt not hence — I '11 hide thee, 
Gaveston. 

Gav. I shall be found, and then 'twill grieve me 
more. 

K. Edw. Kind words, and mutual talk make our 
grief greater : 
Therefore with dumb embracement, let us part. 
Stay, Gaveston ; I cannot leave thee thus. 135 

Gav. For every look, my lord, drops down a tear : 
Seeing I must go, do not renew my sorrow. 

K. Edw. The time is little that thou hast to stay, 
And, therefore, give me leave to look my fill. 
But come, sweet friend ; I '11 bear thee on thy way. 140 

Gav. The peers will frown. 



20 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

K. Edw. I pass not for their anger — Come let's go ; 

that we might as well return as go! 

Enter Queen Isabella. 

Q. Isab. Whither goes my lord ? 
K. Edw. Fawn not on me, French strumpet ! get 
thee gone. 145 

Q. Isab. On whom but on my husband should I 
fawn ? 

Gav. On Mortimer ; with whom, ungentle queen, — 

1 say no more — judge you the rest, my lord. 

Q. Isab. In saying this, thou wrong'st me, Gav- 
eston ; 
Is't not enough that thou corrupt'st my lord, 150 

And art a bawd to his affections, 
But thou must call mine honour thus in question ? 
Gav. I mean not so ; your grace must pardon me. 
K. Edw. Thou art too familiar with that Mortimer, 
And by thy means is Gaveston exil'd ; 155 

But I would wish thee reconcile the lords, 
Or thou shalt ne'er be reconciled to me. 

Q. Isab. Your highness knows it lies not in my 

power. 
K. Edw. Away then ! touch me not. — Come Gav- 
eston. 
Q. Isab. Villain ! 'tis thou that robb'st me of my 
lord. 160 

Gav. Madam, 'tis you that rob me of my lord. 
K. Edw. Speak not unto her ; let her droop and 
pine. 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 21 

Q. Isab. Wherein, my lord, have I deserv'd these 
words ? 
Witness the tears that Isabella sheds, 
Witness this heart, that, sighing for thee, breaks, 165 
How dear my lord is to poor Isabel. 

K. Edw. And witness heaven how dear thou art to 
me ! 
There weep : for, till my Gaveston be repeal'd, 
Assure thyself thou com'st not in my sight. 

[Exeunt King Edward and Gaveston. 

Q. Isab. O miserable and distressed queen ! 170 
Would, when I left sweet France and was embark'd, 
That charming Circe, walking on the waves, 
Had chang'd my shape, or at the marriage day 
The cup of Hymen had been full of poison ! 
Or with those arms that twin'd about my neck 175 
I had been stifled, and not liv'd to see 
The king my lord thus to abandon me ! 
Like frantic Juno will I fill the earth 
With ghastly murmur of my sighs and cries ; 
For never doted Jove on Ganymede 180 

So much as he on cursed Gaveston : 
But that will more exasperate his wrath ; 
I must entreat him, I must speak him fair, 
And be a means to call home Gaveston : 
And yet he'll ever dote on Gaveston : 185 

And so am I for ever miserable 

Re-enter Lancaster, Warwick, Pembroke, the elder 
Mortimer, and the younger Mortimer. 

Lan. Look where the sister of the King of France 
Sits wringing of her hands, and beats her breast ! 



22 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

War. The king, I fear, hath ill-entreated her. 
Pern. Hard is the heart that injures such a 

saint. 190 

Y. Mor. I know 'tis 'long of Gaveston she weeps. 
E. Mor. Why, he is gone. 

Y. Mor. Madam, how fares your grace ? 

Q. Isab. Ah, Mortimer ! now breaks the king's 

hate forth, 
And he confesseth that he loves me not. 

Y. Mor. Cry quittance, madam, then, and love not 
him. 195 

Q. Isab. No, rather will I die a thousand 
deaths : 
And yet I love in vain ; he'll ne'er love me. 

Lan. Fear ye not, madam; now his minion's gone, 
His wanton humour will be quickly left. 

Q. Isab. O never, Lancaster ! I am enjoin'd 200 
To sue unto you all for his repeal ; 
This wills my lord, and this must I perform, 
Or else be banish'd from his highness' presence. 

Lan. For his repeal, madam ! he comes not back, 
Unless the sea cast up his shipwreck'd body. 205 

War. And to behold so sweet a sight as that, 
There's none here but would run his horse to death. 

Y. Mor. But, madam, would you have us call him 
home ? 

Q. Isab. Ay, Mortimer, for till he be restor'd, 
The angry king hath banish'd me the court ; 210 

And therefore, as thou lov'st and tender'st me, 
Be thou my advocate unto these peers. 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 23 

Y. Mor. What ! would you have me plead for 
Gaveston ? 

E. Mor. Plead for him that will, I am resolv'd. 

Lan. And so am I, my lord ; dissuade the 
queen. 215 

Q. Isab. Lancaster ! let him dissuade the king ! 
For 'tis against my will he should return. 

War. Then speak not for him ; let the peasant go. 

Q. Isab. 'Tis for myself I speak, and not for him. 

Pern. No speaking will prevail, and therefore 
cease. 220 

Y. Mor. Fair queen, forbear to angle for the fish, 
Which, being caught, strikes him that takes it dead ; 
I mean that vile torpedo, Gaveston, 
That now I hope floats on the Irish seas. 

Q. Isab. Sweet Mortimer, sit down by me a 
while, 225 

And I will tell thee reasons of such weight, 
As thou wilt soon subscribe to his repeal. 

Y. Mor. It is impossible ; but speak your mind. 

Q. Isab. Then thus ; — but none shall hear it but 
ourselves. 

[Talks to Y. Mortimer apart. 

Lan. My lords, albeit the queen win Morti- 
mer, 230 
Will you be resolute, and hold with me ? 

E. Mor. Not I, against my nephew. 

Pern. Fear not, the queen's words cannot alter 
him. 



24 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

War. No ? do but mark how earnestly she 
pleads ! 

Lan. And see how coldly his looks make 
denial ! 235 

War. She smiles; now for my life his mind is 
chang'd ! 

Lan. I'll rather lose his friendship, I, than grant. 

Y. Mor. Well, of necessity it must be so. — 
My lords, that I abhor base Gaveston 
I hope your honours make no question, 240 

And therefore, though I plead for his repeal, 
'Tis not for his sake, but for our avail : 
Nay, for the realm's behoof, and for the king's. 

Lan. Fie, Mortimer, dishonour not thyself ! 
Can this be true, 'twas good to banish him? 245 

And is this true, to call him home again ? 
Such reasons make white black, and dark night day. 

Y. Mor. My lord of Lancaster, mark the respect. 

Lan. In no respect can contraries be true. 

Q. Isab. Yet, good my lord, hear what he can 

allege. 250 

War. All that he speaks is nothing ; we are re- 

solv'd. 
Y. Mor. Do you not wish that Gaveston were 

dead ? 
Pern. I would he were. 
Y. Mor. Why then, my lord, give me but leave to 

speak. 
E. Mor. But, nephew, do not play the sophister. 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 25 

Y. Mor. This which I urge is of a burning zeal 
To mend the king, and do our country good. 
Know yon not Gaveston hath store of gold, 
Which may in Ireland purchase him such friends, 
As he will front the mightiest of us all ? 260 

And whereas he shall live and be belov'd, 
'Tis hard for us to work his overthrow. 

War. Mark you but that, my lord of Lancaster. 

Y. Mor. But were he here, detested as he is, 
How easily might some base slave be suborn'd 265 
To greet his lordship with a poniard, 
And none so much as blame the murderer, 
But rather praise him for that brave attempt, 
And in the chronicle enrol his name 
For purging of the realm of such a plague ? 270 

Pern. He saith true. 

Lan. x\y, but how chance this was not done before ? 

Y. Mor. Because, my lords, it was not thought 
upon. 
Nay, more, when he shall know it lies in us 
To banish him, and then to call him home, 275 

'Twill make him vail the top-flag of his pride, 
And fear to offend the meanest nobleman. 

E. Mor. But how if he do not, nephew ? 

Y. Mor. Then may we with some colour rise in 
arms ; 
For, howsoever we have borne it out, 280 

'Tis treason to be up against the king ; 
So shall we have the people of our side, 
Which for his father's sake lean to the king, 
But cannot brook a night-grown mushroom, 



26 EDWAkD THE SECOND. 

Such a one as my lord of Cornwall is, 285 

Should bear us down of the nobility : 

And when the commons and the nobles join, 

'Tis not the king can buckler Gaveston ; 

We'll pull him from the strongest hold he hath. 

My lords, if to perform this I be slack, 290 

Think me as base a groom as Gaveston. 

Lan. On that condition, Lancaster will grant. 

War. And so will Pembroke and I. 

E. Mor. And I. 

Y. Mor. In this I count me highly gratified, 
And Mortimer will rest at your command. 295 

Q. Isab. And when this favour Isabel forgets, 
Then let her live abandon'd and forlorn. 
But see, in happy time, my lord the king, 
Having brought the Earl of Cornwall on his way, 
Is new returned. This news will glad him much ; 
Yet not so much as me ; I love him more 301 

Than he can Gaveston ; would he lov'd me 
But half so much ! then were I treble-blest. 

Re-enter King Edward, mourning. 

K. Edw. He's gone, and for his absence thus I 
mourn : 
Did never sorrow go so near my heart, 305 

As doth the want of my sweet Gaveston ! 
And could my crown's revenue bring him back, 
I would freely give it to his enemies, 
And think I gain'd, having bought so dear a friend. 

Q. Isab. Hark ! how he harps upon his minion ! 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 27 

K. Edw. My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow, 
Which beats upon it like the Cyclops' hammers, 
And with the noise turns up my giddy brain, 
And makes me frantic for my Gaveston. 
Ah, had some bloodless Fury rose from hell, 315 

And with my kingly sceptre struck me dead, 
When I was forc'd to leave my Gaveston ! 

Lan. Diablo, what passions call you these ? 

Q.Isab. My gracious lord, I come to bring you 
news. 

K. Edw. That you have parled with your Mortimer ? 

Q. Isab. That Gaveston, my lord, shall be repeal'd. 

K. Edw. Repeal'd ! the news is too sweet to be true. 

Q. Isab. But will you love me, if you find it so ? 

K. Edtv. If it be so, what will not Edward do ? 

Q. Isab. For Gaveston, but not for Isabel. 325 

K. Edw. For thee, fair queen, if thou lov'st Gav- 
eston; 
I'll hang a golden tongue about thy neck, 
Seeing thou hast pleaded with so good success. 

Q. Isab. No other jewels hang about my neck 
Than these, my lord ; nor let me have more wealth 
Than I may fetch from this rich treasury. 331 

O how a kiss revives poor Isabel ! 

K. Edw. Once more receive my hand ; and let 
this be 
A second marriage 'twixt thyself and me. 

Q. Isab. And may it prove more happy than the 
first ! 335 

My gentle lord, bespeak these nobles fair, 



28 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

That wait attendance for a gracious look, 
And on their knees salute your majesty. 

K. Edw. Courageous Lancaster, embrace thy king; 
And, as gross vapours perish by the sun, 340 

Even so let hatred with thy sovereign's smile. 
Live thou with me as my companion. 

Lan. This salutation overjoys my heart. 

K. Edw. Warwick shall be my chief est counsellor : 
These silver hairs will more adorn my court 345 

Than gaudy silks, or rich embroidery. 
Chide me, sweet Warwick, if I go astray. 

War. Slay me, my lord, when I offend your grace. 

K. Edw. In solemn triumphs, and in public shows, 
Pembroke shall bear the sword before the king. 350 

Pern. And with this sword Pembroke will fight for 
you. 

K. Edw. But wherefore walks young Mortimer 
aside ? 
Be thou commander of our royal fleet ; 
Or if that lofty office like thee not, 
I make thee here Lord Marshal of the realm. 355 

Y. Mor. My lord, I'll marshal so your enemies, 
As England shall be quiet, and you safe. 

K. Edw. And as for you, Lord Mortimer of Chirke, 
Whose great achievements in our foreign war 
Deserves no common place, nor mean reward, 360 
Be you the general of the levied troops, 
That now are ready to assail the Scots. 

E. Mor. In this your grace hath highly honour'd me, 
For with my nature war doth best agree. 



ACT I. SCENE IV. 29 

Queen. Now is the King of England rich and strong, 
Having the love of his renowned peers. 366 

K. Edw. Ay, Isabel, ne'er was my heart so light. 
Clerk of the crown, direct our warrant forth, 
For Gaveston, to Ireland ! 

Enter Beaumont with warrant. 

Beaumont, fly 
As fast as Iris or Jove's Mercury. 370 

Beau. It shall be done, my gracious Lord. [Exit. 

K. Ediv. Lord Mortimer, we leave you to your 
charge. 
Now let us in, and feast it royally. 
Against our friend the Earl of Cornwall comes, 
We'll have a general tilt and tournament ; 375 

And then his marriage shall be solemniz'd. 
For wot you not that I have made him sure 
Unto our cousin, the Earl of Glocester's heir? 

Lan. Such news we hear, my lord. 

K. Edw. That day, if not for him, yet for my sake, 
Who in the triumph will be challenger, 381 

Spare for no cost ; we will requite your love. 

War. In this or aught your highness shall com- 
mand us. 
K. Edw. Thanks, gentle Warwick : come let's in 
and revel. 

[Exeunt all except the elder Mortimer 
and the younger Mortimer. 
£. Mor. Nephew, 1 must to Scotland ; thou stay'st 
here. 385 



3° EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Leave now to oppose thyself against the king. 
Thou seest by nature he is mild and calm ; 
And, seeing his mind so dotes on Gaveston, 
Let him without controlment have his will. 
The mightiest kings have had their minions : 390 

Great Alexander lov'd Hephsestion, 
The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept, 
And for Patroclus stern Achilles droop'd : 
And not kings only, but the wisest men ; 
The Roman Tully lov'd Octavius, 395 

Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades. 
Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible, 
And promiseth as much as we can wish, 
Freely enjoy that vain light-headed earl ; 
For riper years will wean him from such toys. 400 
Y. Mor. Uncle, his wanton humour grieves not 
me ; 
But this I scorn, that one so basely born 
Should by his sovereign's favour grow so pert, 
And riot it with the treasure of the realm, 
While soldiers mutiny for want of pay. 405 

He wears a lord's revenue on his back, 
And, Midas-like, he jets it in the court, 
With base outlandish cullions at his heels, 
Whose proud fantastic liveries make such show 
As if that Proteus, god of shapes, appear'd. 410 

I have not seen a dapper Jack so brisk ; 
He wears a short Italian hooded cloak, 
Larded with pearl, and in his Tuscan cap 
A jewel of more value than the crown. 
While others walk below, the king and he, 415 

From out a window, laugh at such as we, 



ACT II. SCENE I. 3 1 

And flout our train, and jest at our attire. 
Uncle, 'tis this that makes me impatient. 

E. Mor. But, nephew, now you see the king is 

chang'd. 
Y. Mor. Then so am I, and live to do him service : 
But whiles I have a sword, a hand, a heart, 421 

I will not yield to any such upstart. 
You know my mind : come, uncle, let's away. 

[Exeunt. 

ACT II. 

Scene I. A Hall in the Earl of Glocester's Castle. 
Enter the younger Spenser and Baldock. 

Bald. Spenser, 
Seeing that our lord the Earl of Glocester's dead, 
Which of the nobles dost thou mean to serve ? 

Y. Spen. Not Mortimer, nor any of his side, 
Because the king and he are enemies. 5 

Baldock, learn this of me: a factious lord 
Shall hardly do himself good, much less us ; 
But he that hath the favour of a king 
May with one word advance us while we live. 
The liberal Earl of Cornwall is the man 10 

On whose good fortune Spenser's hope depends. 

Bald. What, mean you, then, to be his follower? 

Y. Spen. No, his companion ; for he loves me well, 
And would have once preferr'd me to the king. 

Bald. But he is banish'd ; there's small hope of 
him. 15 



32 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Y. Spen. Ay, for a while ; but, Baldock, mark the 
end. 
A friend of mine told me in secrecy 
That he's repeal'd, and sent for back again ; 
And even now a post came from the court 
With letters to our lady from the king ; 20 

And as she read she smil'd ; which makes me think 
It is about her lover Gaveston. 

Bald. 'Tis like enough ; for since he was exil'd 
She neither walks abroad, nor comes in sight. 
But I had thought the match had been broke off, 25 
And that his banishment had changed her mind. 

Y. Spen. Our lady's first love is not wavering ; 
My life for thine she will have Gaveston. 

Bald. Then hope I by her means to be preferr'd, 
Having read unto her since she was a child. 30 

Y. Spen. Then, Baldock, you must cast the scholar 
off, 
And learn to court it like a gentleman. 
'Tis not a black coat and a little band, 
A velvet cap'd cloak, fac'd before with serge, 
And smelling to a nosegay all the day, 35 

Or holding of a napkin in your hand, 
Or saying a long grace at a table's end, 
Or making low legs to a nobleman, 
Or looking downward with your eyelids close, 
And saying, " Truly, an't may please your honour," 40 
Can get you any favour with great men : 
You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute, 
And now and then stab, as occasion serves. 

Bald. Spenser, thou know'st I hate such formal toys, 



ACT II. SCENE I. 33 

And use them but of mere hypocrisy. 45 

Mine old lord whiles he liv'd was so precise, 

That he would take exceptions at my buttons, 

And, being like pins' heads, blame me for the bigness ; 

Which made me curate-like in mine attire, 

Though inwardly licentious enough, 50 

And apt for any kind of villany. 

I am none of these common pedants, I, 

That cannot speak without propterea quod. 

Y. Spen. But one of those that saith, quandoquidem, 
And hath a special gift to form a verb. 55 

Bald. Leave off this jesting ; here my lady comes. 

Enter King Edward's Niece. 

Niece. The grief for his exile was not so much 
As is the joy of his returning home. 
This letter came from my sweet Gaveston : 
What need'st thou, love, thus to excuse thyself ? 60 
I know thou couldst not come and visit me : 
/ will not long be from thee, though I die ; — [Reads. 
This argues the entire love of my lord ; — 
When I forsake thee, death seize on my heart! — [Reads. 
But stay thee here where Gaveston shall sleep. 65 
[Puts the letter into her bosom. 
Now to the letter of my lord the king. — 
He wills me to repair unto the court, 
And meet my Gaveston : why do I stay, 
Seeing that he talks thus of my marriage day? — 
Who's there ? Baldock ! 70 

See that my coach be ready, I must hence. 

Bald. It shall be done, madam. [Exit Baldock. 



34 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Niece. And meet me at the park-pale presently. 
Spenser, stay you and bear me company, 
For I have joyful news to tell thee of ; 75 

My lord of Cornwall is a-coming over, 
And will be at the court as soon as we. 

Spen. I knew the king would have him home again. 

Niece. If all things sort out, as I hope they will, 
Thy service, Spenser, shall be thought upon. 80 

Spen. I humbly thank your ladyship. 

Niece. Come, lead the way ; I long till I am there. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. Tynmouth Castle. 

Enter King Edward, Queen Isabella, Kent, 
Lancaster, the younger Mortimer, Warwick, 
Pembroke, and Attendants. 

K. Edw. The wind is good, I wonder why he 
stays ; 
I fear me he is wreck'd upon the sea. 

Q. Isab. Look, Lancaster, how passionate he is, 
And still his mind runs on his minion ! 

Lan. My lord, 5 

K. Edw. How now ! what news ? is Gaveston 

arrived ? 
Y. Mor. Nothing but Gaveston ! what means your 
grace ? 
You have matters of more weight to think upon ; 
The King of France sets foot in Normandy. 
K. Edw. A trifle ! we'll expel him when we 
please. 10 



ACT II. SCENE II. 35 

But tell me, Mortimer, what's thy device 
Against the stately triumph we decreed ? 

Y. Mor. A homely one, my lord ; not worth the 
telling. 

K. Edw. Pray thee, let me know it. 

Y. Mor. But, seeing you're so desirous, thus it 
is : 15 

A lofty cedar-tree, fair flourishing, 
On whose top-branches kingly eagles perch, 
And by the bark a canker creeps me up, 
And gets into the highest bough of all ; 
The motto, sEqne tandem. 20 

K. Edw. And what is yours, my lord of Lan- 
caster ? 

Lan. My lord, mine's more obscure than Morti- 
mer's. 
Pliny reports there is a flying-fish 
Which all the other fishes deadly hate, 
And therefore, being pursu'd, it takes the air : 25 

No sooner is it up, but there's a fowl 
That seizeth it : this fish, my lord, I bear ; 
The motto this : Undique mors est. 

Kent. Proud Mortimer ! ungentle Lancaster ! 
Is this the love you bear your sovereign ? 30 

Is this the fruit your reconcilement bears ? 
Can you in words make show of amity, 
And in your shields display your rancorous minds ? 
What call you this but private libelling 
Against the Earl of Cornwall and my brother ? 35 

Q. Isab. Sweet husband, be content, they all love 
you. 



3 6 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

K. Edw. They love me not that hate my Gaves- 
ton. 
I am that cedar ; shake me not too much ; 
And you the eagles ; soar ye ne'er so high, 
I have the jesses that will pull you down ; 40 

And sEque tandem shall that canker cry 
Unto the proudest peer of Britainy. 
Though thou compar'st him to a flying-fish, 
And threat'nest death whether he rise or fall, 
'Tis not the hugest monster of the sea, 45 

Nor foulest harpy, that shall swallow him. 

Y. Mor. If in his absence thus he favours him, 
What will he do whenas he shall be present ? 

Lan. That shall we see ; look where his lordship 
comes ! 

Enter Gaveston. 

K. Edw. My Gaveston ! 50 

Welcome to Tynmouth ! welcome to thy friend ! 
Thy absence made me droop and pine away ; 
For, as the lovers of fair Danae, 
When she was lock'd up in a brazen tower, 
Desir'd her more, and wax'd outrageous, 55 

So did it fare with me : and now thy sight 
Is sweeter far than was thy parting hence 
Bitter and irksome to my sobbing heart. 

Gav. Sweet lord and king, your speech preventeth 
mine ; 
Yet have I words left to express my joy : 60 

The shepherd, nipt with biting winter's rage, 
Frolics not more to see the painted spring, 
Than I do to behold your majesty. 



ACT II. SCENE II. 37 

K. Edw. Will none of you salute my Gaveston ? 

Lan. Salute him ! yes. — Welcome, Lord Chamber- 

lain ! 65 

Y. Mor. Welcome is the good Earl of Cornwall ! 

War. Welcome, Lord Governor of the Isle of 

Man ! 
Pern. Welcome, Master Secretary ! 
Kent. Brother, do you hear them ? 
K. Edw. Still will these earls and barons use me 

thus. 70 

Gav. My lord, I cannot brook these injuries. 

Q. Isab. Ay me, poor soul, when these begin to 

jar ! [Aside. 

K. Edw. Return it to their throats ; I'll be thy 

warrant. 
Gav. Base, leaden earls, that glory in your birth, 
Go sit at home and eat your tenants' beef ; 75 

And come not here to scoff at Gaveston, 
Whose mounting thoughts did never creep so low 
As to bestow a look on such as you. 
Lan. Yet I disdain not to do this for you. 

[Draws his sword, and offers to stab Gaveston. 

K. Edw. Treason ! treason ! where's the traitor ? 

Pern. Here ! here ! 81 

K. Edw. Convey hence Gaveston ; they'll murder 

him. 

Gav. The life of thee shall salve this foul disgrace. 
Y. Mor. Villain ! thy life, unless I miss my aim. 

[ Wounds Gaveston. 



3 8 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Q. Isab. Ah ! furious Mortimer, what hast thou 
done ? 85 

Y. Mor. No more than I would answer, were he 
slain. [Exit Gaveston, with Attendants. 

K. Edw. Yes, more than thou canst answer, though 
he live ; 
Dear shall you both abide this riotous deed. 
Out of my presence, come not near the court ! 

Y. Mor. I'll not be barr'd the court for Gaveston. 
Lan. We'll hale him by the ears unto the block. 91 
K. Edw. Look to your own heads ; his is sure 
enough. 

War. Look to your own crown, if you back him 

thus. 
Kent. Warwick, these words do ill beseem thy years. 
K. Edw. Nay, all of them conspire to cross me 
thus ; 95 

But if I live, I'll tread upon their heads 
That think with high looks thus to tread me down. 
Come, Edmund, let's away and levy men, 
'Tis war that must abate these barons' pride. 

[Exeunt King Edward, Queen Isa- 
bella, and Kent. 
War. Let's to our castles, for the king is mov'd. 
Y. Mor. Mov'd may he be, and perish in his 
wrath ! 101 

Lan. Cousin, it is no dealing with him now ; 
He means to make us stoop by force of arms ; 
And therefore let us jointly here protest, 
To prosecute that Gaveston to the death. 105 



ACT II. SCENE II. 39 

Y. Mor. By heaven, the abject villain shall not 
live ! 

War. I'll have his blood, or die in seeking it. 

Pern. The like oath Pembroke takes. 

L lUU And so doth Lancaster. 

Now send our heralds to defy the king ; 
And make the people swear to put him down. no 

Enter a Messenger. 

Y. Mor. Letters ! from whence ? 

Mes. From Scotland, my lord. 

[Giving letters to Mortimer. 

Lan. Why, how now, cousin, how fare all our 
friends ? 

Y. Mor. My uncle's taken prisoner by the Scots. 

Lan. We'll have him ransom'd, man ; be of good 
cheer. 

Y. Mor. They rate his ransom at five thousand 
pound. IJ 5 

Who should defray the money but the king, 
Seeing he is taken prisoner in his wars ? 
I'll to the king. 

Lan. Do, cousin, and I'll bear thee company. 

War. Meantime, my lord of Pembroke and myself 
Will to Newcastle here, and gather head. 121 

Y. Mor. About it then, and we will follow you. 

Lan. Be resolute and full of secrecy. 

War. I warrant you. [Exit with Pembroke. 

Y. Mor. Cousin, and if he will not ranson him, 



40 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

I'll thunder such a peal into his ears, 126 

As never subject did unto his king. 

Lan. Content, I'll bear my part. — Holla ! who's 
there ? 

Enter Guard. 

Y. Mor. Ay, marry, such a guard as this doth well. 

Lan. Lead on the way. 130 

Guard. Whither will your lordships ? 

Y. Mor. Whither else but to the king. 

Guard. His highness is dispos'd to be alone. 

Lan. Why, so he may ; but we will speak to him. 

Guard. You may not in, my lord. 

Y. Mor. ( May we not ? 

Enter King Edward and Kent. 

K. Edw. How now ! 135 

What noise is this ? Who have we there ? is 't you ? 

[Going. 
Y. Mor. Nay, stay, my lord ; I come to bring you 
news ; 
Mine uncle's taken prisoner by the Scots. 
K. Edw. Then ransom him. 

Lan. 'Twas in your wars ; you should ransom 
him. 140 

Y. Mor. And you shall ransom him, or else 

Kent. What ! Mortimer, you will not threaten him ? 
K. Edw. Quiet yourself, you shall have the broad 
seal, 
To gather for him throughout the realm. 



ACT II. SCENE II. 4 1 

Lan. Your minion Gaveston hath taught you this. 

Y. Mor. My lord, the family of the Mortimers 146 
Are not so poor, but, would they sell their land, 
'Twould levy men enough to anger you. 
We never beg, but use such prayers as these. 

K. Edw. Shall I still be haunted thus? 150 

Y. Mor. Nay, now you are here alone, I'll speak 
my mind. 

Lan. And so will I ; and then, my lord, farewell. 

Y. Mor. The idle triumphs, masques, lascivious 
shows, 
And prodigal gifts bestow'd on Gaveston, 
Have drawn thy treasury dry, and made thee weak ; 
The murmuring commons, overstretched, break. 156 

Lan. Look for rebellion, look to be depos'd ; 
Thy garrisons are beaten out of France, 
And, lame and poor, lie groaning at the gates. 
The wild Oneil, with swarms of Irish kerns, 160 

Lives uncontroll'd within the English pale. 
Unto the walls of York the Scots make road, 
And, unresisted, drive away rich spoils. 

Y. Mor. The haughty Dane commands the nar- 
row seas, 
While in the harbour ride thy ships unrigg'd. 165 

Lan. What foreign prince sends thee ambassadors ? 

Y. Mor. Who loves thee, but a sort of flatterers ? 

Lan. Thy gentle queen, sole sister to Valois, 
Complains that thou hast left her all forlorn. 

Y. Mor. Thy court is naked, being bereft of those 
That make a king seem glorious to the world, 171 



42 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

I mean the peers, whom thou should'st dearly love : 
Libels are cast again thee in the street ; 
Ballads and rhymes made of thy overthrow. 

Lan. The Northern borderers seeing their houses 
burnt, 175 

Their wives and children slain, run up and down, 
Cursing the name of thee and Gaveston. 

Y. Mor. When wert thou in the field with banner 
spread 
But once ? and then thy soldiers march'd like players, 
With garish robes, not armour ; and thyself, 180 

Bedaub'd with gold, rode laughing at the rest, 
Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest, 
Where women's favours hung like labels down. 

Lan. And thereof came it, that the fleering Scots, 
To England's high disgrace, have made this jig ; 185 

Maids of England, sore may you mourn , 

For your lemans you have lost at Bannocksbourn, 

With a heave and a ho ! 
What weeneth the King of England 
So soon to have won Scotland ' ? 190 

With a rombeloiu ! 

Y. Mor. Wigmore shall fly, to set my uncle free. 
Lan. And when 'tis gone, our swords shall pur- 
chase more. 
If ye be mov'd, revenge it as you can ; 
Look next to see us with our ensigns spread. 195 

[Exit with Y. Mortimer. 
K. Edw. My swelling heart for very anger breaks : 
How oft have I been baited by these peers, 



ACT II. SCENE II. 43 

And dare not be reveng'd, for their power is great ! 

Yet, shall the crowing of these cockerels 

Affright a lion ? Edward, unfold thy paws, 200 

And let their lives'-blood slake thy fury's hunger. 

If I be cruel and grow tyrannous, 

Now let them thank themselves, and rue too late. 

Kent. My lord, I see your love to Gaveston 
Will be the ruin of the realm and you, 205 

For now the wrathful nobles threaten wars, 
And therefore, brother, banish him for ever. 

K. Edw. Art thou an enemy to my Gaveston ? 

Kent. Ay, and it grieves me that I favour d him. 

K. Edw. Traitor, be gone ! whine thou with Mor- 
timer. 210 

Kent. So will I, rather than with Gaveston. 

K. Edw. Out of my sight, and trouble me no more ! 

Kent. No marvel though thou scorn thy noble 
peers, 
When I thy brother am rejected thus. [Exit Kent. 

K. Edw. Away J 215 

Poor Gaveston, that hast no friend but me ! 
Do what they can, we'll live in Tynmouth here, 
And, so I walk with him about the walls, 
What care I though the earls begirt us round ? 
Here comes she that is cause of all these jars. 220 

Efiter Queen Isabella, with King Edward's Niece, 
two Ladies, Gaveston, Baldock, and the younger 
Spenser. 

Q. Isab. My lord, 'tis thought the earls are up in 
arms. 



44 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

K. Edw. Ay, and 'tis likewise thought you favour 
'em. 

Q. Isab. Thus do you still suspect me without 
cause. 

Niece. Sweet uncle, speak more kindly to the queen. 

Gav. My lord, dissemble with her, speak her fair. 

K. Edw. Pardon me, sweet, I forgot myself. 226 

Q. Isab. Your pardon is quickly got of Isabel. 

K. Edw. The younger Mortimer is grown so brave, 
That to my face he threatens civil wars. 

Gav. Why do you not commit him to the Tower? 

K. Edw. I dare not, for the people love him well. 

Gav. Why, then, we'll have him privily made away. 

K. Edw. Would Lancaster and he had both ca- 
rous'd 
A bowl of poison to each other's health ! 
But let them go, and tell me what are these. 235 

Niece. Two of my father's servants whilst he 
liv'd — 
May't please your grace to entertain them now. 

K. Edw. Tell me, where wast thou born ? What 
is thine arms ? 

Bald. My name is Baldock, and my gentry 
I fetch from Oxford, not from heraldry. 240 

K. Edw. The fitter art thou, Baldock, for my turn. 
Wait on me, and I'll see thou shalt not want. 

Bald. I humbly thank your majesty. 

K. Edw. Knowest thou him, Gaveston ? 



ACT II. SCENE III. 45 

Gav. Ay, my lord ; 

His name is Spenser ; he is well allied ; 245 

For my sake, let him wait upon your grace ; 
Scarce shall you find a man of more desert. 

K. Edw. Then, Spenser, wait upon me, for his 
sake : 
I'll grace thee with a higher style ere long. 

Y. Spen. No greater titles happen unto me, 250 
Than to be favour'd of your majesty ! 

K. Edw. Cousin, this day shall be your marriage 
feast : — 
And, Gaveston, think that I love thee well, 
To wed thee to our niece, the only heir 
Unto the Earl of Glocester late deceas'd. 255 

Gav. I know, my lord, many will stomach me ; 
But I respect neither their love nor hate. 

K. Edw. The headstrong barons shall not limit 
me ; 
He that I list to favour shall be great. 
Come, let's away ; and when the marriage ends, 260 
Have at the rebels and their complices ! [Exeunt. 



Scene III. The Barons Camp before Tynmouth Castle. 

Enter Kent, Lancaster, the yowiger Mortimer, 
Warwick, Pembroke, and others. 

Kent. My lords, of love to this our native land, 
I come to join with you and leave the king ; 
And in your quarrel, and the realm's behoof, 
Will be the first that shall adventure life. 



46 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Lan. I fear me, you are sent of policy, 5 

To undermine us with a show of love. 

War. He is your brother ; therefore have we cause 
To cast the worst, and doubt of your revolt. 

Kent. Mine honour shall be hostage of my truth : 
If that will not suffice, farewell, my lords. 10 

Y. Mor. Stay, Edmund ; never was Plantagenet 
False of his word, and therefore trust we thee. 

Pent. But what's the reason you should leave him 
now ? 

Kent. I have inform'd the Earl of Lancaster. 

Lan. And it sufficeth. Now, my lords, know this, 
That Gaveston is secretly arriv'd, - 16 

And here in Tynmouth frolics with the king. 
Let us with these our followers scale the walls, 
And suddenly surprise them unawares. 

Y. Mor. I'll give the onset. 

War. And I'll follow thee. 20 

Y. Mor. This totter'd ensign of my ancestors, 
Which swept the desert shore of that Dead Sea, ^ 
Whereof we got the name of Mortimer, 
Will I advance upon this castle's walls. — 
Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their sport, 25 
And ring aloud the knell of Gaveston ! 

Lan. None be so hardy as to touch the king; 
But neither spare you Gaveston nor his friends. 

\_Exeunt. 



ACT //. SCENE IV. 47 

Scene IV. Within Tynmouth Castle. 

Enter, severally, King Edward and the younger 
Spenser. 

K. Edw. O tell me, Spenser, where is Gaveston ? 
Spen. I fear me he is slain, my gracious lord. 
K. Edw. No, here he comes ; now let them spoil 
and kill. 

Enter Queen Isabella, King Edward's Niece, 

Gaveston, and Nobles. 

Fly, fly, my lords ; the earls have got the hold ; 
Take shipping and away to Scarborough ; 5 

Spenser and I will post away by land. 

Gav. O stay, my lord ! they will not injure you. 

K. Edw. I will not trust them. Gaveston, away ! 

Gav. Farewell, my lord. 

K. Edw. Lady, farewell. 

Niece. Farewell, sweet uncle, till we meet again. 10 

K. Edw. Farewell, sweet Gaveston ; and farewell, 
niece. 

Q. Isab. No farewell to poor Isabel thy queen ? 

K. Edit'. Yes, yes, for Mortimer, your lover's sake. 
[Exeunt all except Queen Isabella. 

Q. Isab. Heavens can witness, I love none but 
you. 
From my embracements thus he breaks away. 15 

O that mine arms could close this isle about, 
That I might pull him to me where I would ! 
Or that these tears, that drizzle from mine eyes, 



4 8 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Had power to mollify his stony heart, 

That when I had him we might never part ! 20 

Enter Lancaster, Warwick, the younger Mortimer, 
and others. Alarums within. 

Lan. I wonder how he scap'd ! 

Y. Mor. Who's this ? the queen ! 

Q. Isab. Ay, Mortimer, the miserable queen, 
Whose pining heart her inward sighs have blasted, 
And body with continual mourning wasted : 
These hands are tir'd with haling of my lord 25 

From Gaveston, from wicked Gaveston ; 
And all in vain ; for, when I speak him fair, 
He turns away, and smiles upon his minion. 

Y. Mor. Cease to lament, and tell us where's the 
king ? 

Q. Isab. What would you with the king ? is't him 
you seek? 30 

Lan. No, madam, but that cursed Gaveston. 
Far be it from the thought of Lancaster 
To offer violence to his sovereign ! 
We would but rid the realm of Gaveston : 
Tell us where he remains, and he shall die. 35 

Q. Isab. He's gone by water unto Scarborough ; 
Pursue him quickly and he cannot scape ; 
The king hath left him, and his train is small. 

War. Forslow no time, sweet Lancaster ; let's 
march. 

Y. Mor. How comes it that the king and he is 
parted ? 40 



ACT II. SCENE IV. 49 

Q. Isab. That thus your army, going several ways, 
Might be of lesser force, and with the power 
That he intendeth presently to raise, 
Be easily suppress'd ; therefore be gone. 

Y. Mor. Here in the river rides a Flemish hoy ; 
Let's all aboard, and follow him amain. 46 

Ian. . The wind that bears him hence will fill our 
sails : 
Come, come aboard, 'tis but an hour's sailing. 

Y. Mor. Madam, stay you within this castle here. 

Q. Isab. No, Mortimer ; I'll to my lord the king. 

Y. Mor. Nay, rather sail with us to Scarborough. 

Q. Isab. You know the king is so suspicious 
As if he hear I have but talk'd with you, 
Mine honour will be call'd in question ; 
And therefore, gentle Mortimer, be gone. 55 

Y. Mor. Madam, I cannot stay to answer you ; 
But think of Mortimer as he deserves. 

[Exeunt all except Queen Isabella. 

Q. Isab. So well hast thou deserved, sweet Morti- 
mer, 
As Isabel could live with thee for ever. 
In vain I look for love at Edward's hand, 60 

Whose eyes are fix'd on none but Gaveston. 
Yet once more I'll importune him with prayer ; 
If he be strange and not regard my words, 
My son and I will over into France, 
And to the king my brother there complain, 65 

How Gaveston hath robb'd me of his love : 
But yet I hope my sorrows will have end, 
And Gaveston this blessed day be slain. [Exit. 



50 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Scene V. Country near Scarborough Castle. 

Enter Gaveston, pursued. 

Gav. Yet, lusty lords, I have escap'd your hands, 
Your threats, your 'larums, and your hot pursuits ; 
And though divorced from King Edward's eyes, 
Yet liveth Pierce of Gaveston unsurpris'd, 
Breathing, in hope (malgrado all your beards, 5 

That muster rebels thus against your king) 
To see his royal sovereign once again. 

Enter Warwick, Lancaster, Pembroke, the younger 
Mortimer, Soldiers, James and other Attendants 
of Pembroke. 

War. Upon him, soldiers ! take away his weapons ! 

Y. Mor. Thou proud disturber of thy country's 
peace, 
Corrupter of thy king, cause of these broils, 10 

Base flatterer, yield ! and, were it not for shame, 
Shame and dishonour to a soldier's name, 
Upon my weapon's point here should'st thou fall, 
And welter in thy gore. 

Lan. Monster of men, 

That, like the Greekish strumpet, train'd to arms 15 
And bloody wars so many valiant knights, 
Look for no other fortune, wretch, than death ! 
King Edward is not here to buckler thee. 

War. Lancaster, why talk'st thou to the slave ? 

Go, soldiers, take him hence; for by my sword 20 



ACT II SCENE V. 51 

His head shall off. — Gaveston, short warning 
Shall serve thy turn : it is our country's cause, 
That here severely we will execute 
Upon thy person. Hang him at a bough. 

Gav. My lord, — 

War. Soldiers, have him away. — 25 

But for thou wert the favourite of a king, 
Thou shalt have so much honour at our hands. 

Gav. I thank you all, my lords : then I perceive 
That heading is one, and hanging is the other, 
And death is all . 

Enter Arundel. 

Lan. How now, my lord of Arundel ! 30 

Arim. My lords, King Edward greets you all by 
me. 

War. Arundel, say your message. 

Aran. His majesty, hearing that you had taken 
Gaveston, 
Entreateth you by me, yet but he may 
See him before he dies ; for why, he says, 35 

And sends you word, he knows that die he shall ; 
And if you gratify his grace so far, 
He will be mindful of the courtesy. 

War. How now ? 

Gav. Renowmed Edward, how thy name 

Revives poor Gaveston ! 

War. No, it needeth not ; 40 

Arundel, we will gratify the king 



52 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

In other matters ; he must pardon us in this. — 
Soldiers, away with him ! 

Gav. Why, my lord of Warwick, 

Will not these delays beget my hopes ? 
I know it, lords, it is this life you aim at ; 45 

Yet grant King Edward this. 

Y. Mor. Shalt thou appoint 

What we shall grant? — Soldiers, away with him ! 
Thus we'll gratify the king ; [To Arundel. 

We'll send his head by thee ; let him bestow 
His tears on that, for that is all he gets 50 

Of Gaveston, or else his senseless trunk. 

Lan. Not so, my lords, lest he bestow more cost 
In burying him, than he hath ever earn'd. 

Arun. My lords, it is his majesty's request, 
And in the honour of a king he swears, 55 

He will but talk with him, and send him back, 

War. When, can you tell ? Arundel, no ; we 
wot, 
He that the care of his realm remits, 
And drives his nobles to these exigents 
For Gaveston, will, if he sees him once, 60 

Violate any promise to possess him. 

Arun. Then if you will not trust his grace in 
keep, 
My lords, I will be pledge for his return. 

Y. Mor. 'Tis honourable in thee to offer this ; 
But for we know thou art a noble gentleman, 65 

We will not wrong thee so, 
To make away a true man for a thief. 



ACT II SCENE V. 53 

Gav. How mean'st thou, Mortimer ? that is over- 
base. 

Y. Mor. Away, base groom, robber of king's re- 
nown ! 
Question with thy companions and mates, 70 

Pern. My Lord Mortimer, and you, my lords, each 
one, 
To gratify the king's request therein, 
Touching the sending of this Gaveston, 
Because his majesty so earnestly 

Desires to see the man before his death, 75 

I will upon mine honour undertake 
To carry him, and bring him back again ; 
Provided this, that you, my lord of Arundel, 
Will join with me. 

War. Pembroke, what wilt thou do ? 

Cause yet more bloodshed ? is it not enough 80 

That we have taken him, but must we now 
Leave him on "had I wist," and let him go? 

Pern. My lords, I will not over-woo your honours, 
But if you dare trust Pembroke with the prisoner, 
Upon mine oath, I will return him back. 85 

Arun. My lord of Lancaster, what say you in this ? 

Lan. Why, I say, let him go on Pembroke's word. 

Pern. And you, Lord Mortimer ? 

Y. Mor. How say you, my lord of Warwick ? 

War. Nay, do your pleasures, I know how 'twill 
prove. 

Pern. Then give him me. 



54 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Gav. Sweet sovereign, yet I come 

To see thee ere I die. 

War. Yet not perhaps, 91 

If Warwick's wit and policy prevail. [Aside. 

Y. Mor. My lord of Pembroke, we deliver him you ; 
Return him on your honour. Sound, away ! 

[Exeunt all except Pembroke, Arundel, 
Gaveston, James, and other Attend- 
ants of Pembroke. 

Pern. My lord, you shall go with me. 95 

My house is not far hence ; out of the way 
A little ; but our men shall go along. 
We that have pretty wenches to our wives, 
Sir, must not come so near to balk their lips. 

Arun. 'Tis very kindly spoke, my lord of Pembroke; 
Your honour hath an adamant of power 101 

To draw a prince. 

Pern. So, my lord. — Come hither, James : 

I do commit this Gaveston to thee ; 
Be thou this night his keeper ; in the morning 
We will discharge thee of thy charge ; be gone. 105 

Gav. Unhappy Gaveston, whither go'st thou now ?■ 
[Exit with James and other Attendants 
of Pembroke. 

Horse-boy. My lord, we'll quickly be at Cobham. 

[Exeunt. 



ACT III. SCENE J. 55 

ACT III. 

Scene I. Country near Deddington. 

Enter Gaveston mourning, James and other Attendants 
of Pembroke. 

Gav. O treacherous Warwick, thus to wrong thy 
friend ! 

James. I see it is your life these arms pursue. 

Gav. Weaponless must I fall, and die in bands ? 
Oh ! must this day be period of my life, 
Centre of all my bliss ? An ye be men, 5 

Speed to the king. 

Enter Warwick and Soldiers. 

War. My lord of Pembroke's men, 

Strive you no longer : I will have that Gaveston. 

James. Your lordship doth dishonour to yourself, 
And wrong our lord, your honourable friend. 

War. No, James, it is my country's cause I follow. — 
Go, take the villain ; soldiers, come away ; 11 

We'll make quick work. — Commend me to your master, 
My friend, and tell him that I watch'd it well. 
Come, let thy shadow parley with King Edward. 

Gav. Treacherous earl, shall not I see the king ? 15 

War. The King of heaven perhaps, no other king. — 
Away ! 

[Exeunt Warwick and' Soldiers with 
Gaveston. 

James. Come, fellows ; it booted not for us to strive; 
We will in haste go certify our lord. [Exeunt. 



5© EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Scene II. King's camp, near B or oughbridge, Yorkshire. 

Enter King Edward, the younger Spenser, Baldock, 
Noblemen of the kings side, and Soldiers with 
drums and fifes. 

K. Edw. I long to hear an answer from the barons 
Touching my friend, my dearest Gaveston. 
Ah, Spenser, not the riches of my realm 
Can ransom him ! ah, he is mark'd to die ! 
I know the malice of the younger Mortimer ; 5 

Warwick I know is rough, and Lancaster 
Inexorable, and I shall never see 
My lovely Pierce of Gaveston again : 
The barons overbear me with their pride. 

Y. Spen. Were I King Edward, England's sover- 
eign, 10 
Son to the lovely Eleanor of Spain, 
Great Edward Longshanks' issue, would I bear 
These braves, this rage, and suffer uncontroll'd 
These barons thus to beard me in my land, 
In mine own realm ? My lord, pardon my speech ; 15 
Did you retain your father's magnanimity, 
Did you regard the honour of your name, 
You would not suffer thus your majesty 
Be counterbuff'd of your nobility. 
Strike off their heads, and let them preach on poles : 
No doubt, such lessons they will teach the rest, 21 
As by their preachments they will profit much, 
And learn obedience to their lawful king. 

K. Edw. Yea, gentle Spenser, we have been too 
mild, 



ACT III. SCENE II. 57 

Too kind to them ; but now have drawn our sword, 
And if they send me not my Gaveston, 26 

We'll steel it on their crest, and poll their tops 

Bald. This haught resolve becomes your majesty, 
Not to be tied to their affection, 

As though your highness were a schoolboy still, 30 
And must be aw'd and govern'd like a child. 

Enter the elder Spenser, with his truncheon, and 
Soldiers. 

E. Spen. Long live my sovereign, the noble Edward, 
In peace triumphant, fortunate in wars ! 

K. Edw. Welcome, old man ; com'st thou in Ed- 
ward's aid ? 
Then tell thy prince of whence, and what thou art. 35 

E. Spen. Lo, with a band of bow-men and of pikes, 
Brown bills and targeters, four hundred strong, 
Sworn to defend King Edward's royal right, 
I come in person to your majesty, 
Spenser, the father of Hugh Spenser there, 40 

Bound to your highness everlastingly 
For favour done, in him, unto us all. 

K. Edw. Thy father, Spenser ? 

Y. Spen. True, an it like your grace, 

That pours, in lieu of all your goodness shown, 
His life, my lord, before your princely feet. 45 

K. Edw. Welcome ten thousand times, old man, 
again. 
Spenser, this love, this kindness to thy king, 
Argues thy noble mind and disposition. 
Spenser, I here create thee Earl of Wiltshire, 



5 8 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

And daily will enrich thee with our favour, 50 

That, as the sun-shine, shall reflect o'er thee. 
Beside, the more to manifest our love, 
Because we hear Lord. Bruce doth sell his land, 
And that the Mortimers are in hand withal, 
Thou shalt have crowns of us t' outbid the barons ; 
And, Spenser, spare them not, lay it on. 56 

Soldiers, a largess, and thrice welcome all ! 
Y. Spen. My lord, here comes the queen. 

Enter Queen Isabella, Prince Edward, atid 
Levune. 

K. Edw. Madam, what news? 

Q. Isab. News of dishonour, lord, and discontent. 
Our friend Levune, faithful and full of trust, 60 

Informeth us, by letters and by words, 
That Lord Vaiois our brother, King of France, 
Because your highness hath been slack in homage, 
Hath seized Normandy into his hands. 
These be the letters, this the messenger. 65 

K. Edw. Welcome, Levune. — Tush, Sib, if this be 
all, 
Vaiois and I will soon be friends again. — 
But to my Gaveston : shall I never see, 
Never behold thee now ? — Madam, in this matter 
We will employ you and your little son ; 70 

You shall go parley with the King of France. — 
Boy, see you bear you bravely to the king, 
And do your message with a majesty. 

P. Edw. Commit not to my youth things of more 
weight 



ACT III. SCENE II. 59 

Than fits a prince so young as I to bear ; 75 

And fear not, lord and father, — heaven's great beams 
On Atlas' shoulder shall not lie more safe 
Than shall your charge committed to my trust. 

Q. Isab. Ah, boy ! this towardness makes thy 
mother fear 
Thou art not mark'd to many days on earth. 80 

K. Edw. Madam, we will that you with speed be 
shipp'd, 
And this our son ; Levune shall follow you 
With all the haste we can despatch him hence. 
Choose of our lords to bear you company ; 
And go in peace ; leave us in wars at home. 85 

Q. Isab. Unnatural wars, where subjects brave 
their king ; 
God end them once ! My lord, I take my leave, 
To make my preparation for France. 

[Exit with Prince Edward. 

Enter Arundel. 

K. Edw. What, Lord Arundel, dost thou come 
alone ? 

Arun. Yea, my good lord, for Gaveston is dead. 

K. Edw. Ah, traitors, have they put my friend to 
death ? 91 

Tell me, Arundel, died he ere thou cam'st, 
Or didst thou see my friend to take his death? 

Arun. Neither, my lord ; for as he was surpris'd, 
Begirt with weapons and with enemies round, 95 

I did your highness' message to them all, 



60 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Demanding him of them, entreating rather, 

And said, upon the honour of my name, 

That I would undertake to carry him 

Unto your highness, and to bring him back. ioo 

K. Edw. And tell me, would the rebels deny me 
that? 

Y. Spen. Proud recreants ! 

K. Edw. Yea, Spenser, traitors all. 

Arun. I found them at the first inexorable ; 
The Earl of Warwick would not bide the hearing, 
Mortimer hardly ; Pembroke and Lancaster 105 

Spake least : and when they flatly had denied, 
Refusing to receive me pledge for him, 
The Earl of Pembroke mildly thus bespake ; 
" My lords, because our sovereign sends for him, 
And promiseth he shall be safe return'd, no 

I will this undertake, to have him hence, 
And see him re-deliver'd to your hands." 

K. Edw. Well, and how fortunes that he came not ? 

Y. Spen. Some treason or some villany was cause. 

Arun. The Earl of Warwick seiz'd him on his 
way; 115 

For, being deliver'd unto Pembroke's men, 
Their lord rode home thinking his prisoner safe ; 
But ere he came, Warwick in ambush lay, 
And bare him to his death ; and in a trench 
Strake off his head, and march'd unto the camp. 120 

Y. Spen. A bloody part, flatly 'gainst law of arms. 

K. Edw. O shall I speak, or shall I sigh and die ! 



ACT III. SCENE II. 6 1 

Y. Spen. My lord, refer your vengeance to the 
sword 
Upon these barons ; hearten up your men ; 
Let them not unreveng'd murder your friends ! 125 
Advance your standard, Edward, in the field, 
And march to fire them from their starting holes. 

K. Ediu. \kneeling\. By earth, the common mother 
of us all, 
By heaven, and all the moving orbs thereof, 
By this right hand, and by my father's sword, 130 

And all the honours 'longing to my crown, 
I will have heads, and lives for him, as many 
As I have manors, castles, towns, and towers ! [Rises. 
Treacherous Warwick ! traitorous Mortimer ! 
If I be England's king, in lakes of gore 135 

Your headless trunks, your bodies will I trail, 
That you may drink your fill, and quaff in blood. 
And stain my royal standard with the same, 
That so my bloody colours may suggest 
Remembrance of revenge immortally 140 

On your accursed traitorous progeny, 
You villains, that have slain my Gaveston ! 
And in his place of honour and of trust, 
Spenser, sweet Spenser, I adopt thee here : 
And merely of our love we do create thee 145 

Earl of Glocester, and Lord Chamberlain, 
Despite of times, despite of enemies. 

Y. Spen. My lord, here is a messenger from the 
barons, 
Desires access unto your majesty. 

K. Edw. Admit him near. 150 



62 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Enter Herald, with his coat of arms. 

Her. Long live King Edward, England's lawful 
lord ! 

K. Edw. So wish not they, I wis, that sent thee 
hither. 
Thou com'st from Mortimer and his complices ; 
A ranker rout of rebels never was. 
Well, say thy message. 155 

Her. The barons up in arms by me salute 
Your highness with long life and happiness ; 
And bid me say, as plainer to your grace, 
That if without effusion of blood 
You will this grief have ease and remedy, 160 

That from your princely person you remove 
This Spenser, as a putrifying branch, 
That deads the royal vine, whose golden leaves 
Empale your princely head, your diadem ; 
Whose brightness such pernicious upstarts dim, 165 
Say they, and lovingly advise your grace 
To cherish virtue and nobility, 
And have old servitors in high esteem, 
And shake off smooth dissembling flatterers : v 

This granted, they, their honours, and their lives, 170 
Are to your highness vow'd and consecrate. 

Y. Spen. Ah, traitors, will they still display their 
pride ? 

K. Edw. Away \ tarry no answer, but be gone ! — 
Rebels, will they appoint their sovereign 
His sports, his pleasures, and his company ? — 175 
Yet, ere thou go, see how I do divorce 

{Embraces Spenser. 



ACT III. SCENE III. 63 

Spenser from me. — Now get thee to thy lords, 
And tell them I will come to chastise them 
For murdering Gaveston ; hie thee, get thee gone ! 
Edward with fire and sword follows at thy heels. 180 

[Exit Herald. 
My lord, perceive you how these rebels swell ? — 
Soldiers, good hearts ! defend your sovereign's right, 
For now, even now, we march to make them stoop. 
Away ! 

[Exeunt. Alarums, excursions, a great 
fight, and a retreat sounded ivithin. 



Scene III. Another part of the field, Boroughbridge. 

Enter King Edward, the elder Spenser, the younger 
Spenser, Baldock, and Noblemen of the king's 
side. 

K. Edw. Why do we sound retreat ? upon them, 
lords ! 
This day I shall pour vengeance with my sword 
On those proud rebels that are up in arms, 
And do confront and countermand their king. 

Y. Spen. I doubt it not, my lord, right will prevail. 

E. Spen. 'Tis not amiss, my liege, for either part 
To breathe awhile ; our men, with sweat and dust 
All chok'd well near, begin to faint for heat ; 
And this retire refresheth horse and man. 

Y. Spen. Here come the rebels. 10 



64 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Enter the younger Mortimer, Lancaster, V/arwick, 
Pembroke, and others. 

Y. Mor. Look, Lancaster, yonder is Edward 
Among his flatterers. 

La?i. And there let him be 

Till he pay dearly for their company. 

War. And shall, or Warwick's sword shall smite in 
vain. 

K. Edw. What, rebels, do you shrink and sound 
retreat? 15 

Y. Mor. No, Edward, no ; thy flatterers faint and 

fly. 
Lan. They had best betimes forsake thee and their 
trains, 
For they'll betray thee, traitors as they are. 

Y. Spen. Traitor on thy face, rebellious Lancaster ! 
Pem. Away, base upstart ! brav'st thou nobles thus ? 

E. Spen. A noble attempt, and honourable deed, 2 1 
Is it not, trow ye, to assemble aid, 
And levy arms against your lawful king ! 

K. Edw. For which ere long their heads shall sat- 
isfy, 
To appease the wrath of their offended king. 25 

Y. Mor. Then, Edward, thou wilt fight it to the 
last, 
And rather bathe thy sword in subjects' blood, 
Than banish that pernicious company? 

K. Edw. Ay, traitors all, rather than thus be 
brav'd, 



ACT III. SCENE III. 65 

Make England's civil towns huge heaps of stones, 30 
And ploughs to go about our palace gates. 

War. A desperate and unnatural resolution ! — 
Alarum to the fight ! 
St. George for England, and the barons' right. 

K. Edw. St. George for England, and King Ed- 
ward's right. 35 
[Alarums. Exeunt the two parties severally. 

Enter King Edward and his follower s, with the Barons 
and Kent, captives. 

K. Edw. Now, lusty lords, now not by chance of 
war, 
But justice of the quarrel and the cause, 
Vail'd is your pride ; methinks you hang the heads ; 
But we'll advance them, traitors ; now 'tis time 
To be aveng'd on you for all your braves, 40 

And for the murder of my dearest friend, 
To whom right well you knew our soul was knit, 
Good Pierce of Gaveston, my sweet favourite. 
4h, rebels, recreants, you made him away. 

Kent. Brother, in regard of thee, and of thy land, 
Did they remove that flatterer from thy throne. 46 

K. Edw. So, sir, you have spoke ; away, avoid our 
presence ! [Exit Kent. 

Accursed wretches, was't in regard of us, 
When we had sent our messenger to request 
He might be spar'd to come to speak with us, 50 

And Pembroke undertook for his return, 
That thou, proud Warwick, watch'd the prisoner, 
Poor Pierce, and headed him 'gainst law of arms ; 



66 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

For which thy head shall overlook the* rest, 

As much as thou in rage outwent'st the rest. 55 

War. Tyrant, I scorn thy threats and menaces; 
It is but temporal that thou canst inflict. 

Lan. The worst is death ; and better die to live 
Than live in infamy under such a king. 

K. Edw. Away with them, my lord of Winchester ! 
These lusty leaders, Warwick and Lancaster, 61 

I charge you roundly, off with both their heads ! 
Away ! 

War. Farewell, vain world ! 

Lan. Sweet Mortimer, farewell. 

Y. Mor. England, unkind to thy nobility, 65 

Groan for this grief ! behold how thou art maim'd ! 
K. Edw. Go, take that haughty Mortimer to the 
Tower, 
There see him safe bestow'd ; and for the rest, 
Do speedy execution on them all. 
Be gone ! 70 

Y. Mor. What, Mortimer ! can ragged stony walls 
Immure thy virtue that aspires to heaven ? 
No, Edward, England's scourge, it may not be, 
Mortimer's hope surmounts his fortune far. 

[ The captive Barons are led off. 
K. Edw. Sound drums and trumpets ! March 
with me, my friends. 75 

Edward this day hath crown'd him king anew. 

[Exeunt all except the younger Spenser, 
Levune, and Baldock. 
Y. Spen. Levune, the trust that we repose in thee 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 67 

Begets the quiet of King Edward's land : 

Therefore be gone in haste, and with advice 

Bestow that treasure on the lords of France, 80 

That, therewith all enchanted, like the guard 

That suffer'd Jove to pass in showers of gold 

To Danae, all aid may be denied 

To Isabel, the queen, that now in France 

Makes friends, to cross the seas with her young son, 

And step into his father's regiment. 86 

Levune. That's it these barons and the subtle 
queen 
Long levell'd at. 

Bal. Yea, but, Levune, thou seest, 

These barons lay their heads on blocks together ; 
What they intend, the hangman frustrates clean. 90 

Levune. Have you no doubt, my lords, I'll clap so 
close 
Among the lords of France with England's gold, 
That Isabel shall make her plaints in vain, 
And France shall be obdurate with her tears. 

Y. Spen. Then make for France amain ; Levune, 

away ! 95 

Proclaim King Edward's wars and victories. [Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. London, a Street near the Tower. 
Enter Kent. 

K:nt. Fair blows the wind for France ; blow 
gentle gale, 



68 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Till Edmund be arriv'd for England's good ! 

Nature, yield to my country's cause in this ! 

A brother? no, a butcher of thy friends ! 

Proud Edward, dost thou banish me thy presence ? 5 

But I'll to France, and cheer the wronged queen, 

And certify what Edward's looseness is. 

Unnatural king ! to slaughter noblemen 

And cherish flatterers ! Mortimer, I stay 

Thy sweet escape. Stand gracious, gloomy night, 10 

To his device ! 

Enter the younger Mortimer, disguised. 

Y. Mor. Holla ! who walketh there ? 

Is't you, my lord ? 

Kent. Mortimer, 'tis I. 

But hath thy potion wrought so happily ? 

Y. Mor. It hath, my lord ; the warders, all asleep, 
I thank them, gave me leave to pass in peace. 15 

But hath your grace got shipping unto France ? 

Kent. Fear it not. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. Paris. 

Enter Queen Isabella and Prince Edward. 

Q. Isab. Ah, boy ! our friends do fail us all in 
France ! 
The lords are cruel, and the king unkind. 
What shall we do ? 

P. Edw. Madam, return to England, 

And please my father well ; and then a fig 



ACT IV. SCENE II. 69 

For all my uncle's friendship here in France ! 5 

I warrant you, I'll win his highness quickly ; 
'A loves me better than a thousand Spensers. / 

Q. Isab. Ah, boy, thou art deceiv'd, at least in this, 
To think that we can yet be tun'd together ! 
No, no, we jar too far. — Unkind Valois ! 10 

Unhappy Isabel ! when France rejects, 
Whither, O, whither dost thou bend thy steps ? 

Enter Sir John of Hainault. 

Sir J. Madam, what cheer ? 

Q. Isab. Ah, good Sir John of Hainault, 

Never so cheerless, nor so far distrest ! 

Sir J. I hear, sweet lady, of the king's unkindness; 
But droop not, madam ; noble minds contemn 16 

Despair. Will your grace with me to Hainault, 
And there stay time's advantage with your son ? — 
How say you, my lord ? will you go with your friends, 
And shake off all our fortunes equally ? 20 

P. Edw. So please the queen my mother, me it 
likes : 
The King of England, nor the court of France, 
Shall have me from my gracious mother's side, 
Till I be strong enough to break a staff ; 
And then have at the proudest Spenser's head ! 25 

Sir J. Well said, my lord ! 

Q. Isab. O, my sweet heart, how do I moan thy 
wrongs, 
Yet triumph in the hope of thee, my joy ! — 
Ah, sweet Sir John, even to the utmost verge 
Of Europe, or the shore of Tanais, 30 



7° EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Will we with thee ! to Hainault ? — so we will : — 
The marquis is a noble gentleman ; 
His grace, I dare presume, will welcome me. — 
But who are these? 

Enter Kent and the younger Mortimer. 

Kent. Madam, long may you live 

Much happier than your friends in England do ! 35 

Q. Isab. Lord Edmund and Lord Mortimer alive ! 
Welcome to France ! the news was here, my lord, 
That you were dead, or very near your death. 

Y. Mor. Lady, the last was truest of the twain : 
But Mortimer, reserv'd for better hap, 40 

Hath shaken off the thraldom of the Tower, 
And lives t' advance your standard, good my lord. 

P. Edw. How mean you, and the king my father 
lives ? 
No, my Lord Mortimer, not I, I trow. 

Q. Isab. Not, son ! why not ? I would it were no 
worse ! — 45 

But, gentle lords, friendless we are in France. 

Y. Mor. Monsieur Le Grand, a noble friend of 
yours, 
Told us, at our arrival, all the news, — 
How hard the nobles, how unkind the king 
Hath shew'd himself : but, madam, right makes room 
Where weapons want : and, though a many friends 
Are made away, as Warwick, Lancaster, 
And others of our part and faction ; 
Yet have we friends, assure your grace, in England 



ACT IV. SCENE II. 7 1 

Would cast up caps, and clap their hands for joy, 55 
To see us there, appointed for our foes. 

Kent. Would all were well, and Edward well re- 
claim'd, 
For England's honour, peace, and quietness ! 

Y. Mor. But by the sword, my lord, 't must be de- 
serv'd ; 
The king will ne'er forsake his flatterers. 60 

Sir J. My lords of England, sith th' ungentle king 
Of France refuseth to give aid of arms 
To this distressed queen his sister here, 
Go you with her to Hainault ; doubt ye not, 
We will find comfort, money, men, and friends, 65 

Ere long, to bid the English king a base. 
How say, young prince, what think you of the match ? 

P. Edtv. I think King Edward will outrun us all. 

Q. Isab. Nay, son, not so ; and you must not dis- 
courage 
Your friends that are so forward in your aid. 70 

Kent. Sir John of Hainault, pardon us, I pray ; 
These comforts that you give our woful queen 
Bind us in kindness all at your command. 

Q. Isab. Yea, gentle brother ; and the God of 
heaven 
Prosper your happy motion, good Sir John ! 75 

Y. Mor. This noble gentleman, forward in arms, 
Was born, I see, to be our anchor-hold. — 
Sir John of Hainault, be it thy renown, 
That England's queen and nobles in distress 
Have been by thee restor'd and comforted. 80 



72 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Sir J. Madam, along, and you, my lord, with me, 
That England's peers may Hainault's welcome see. 

[Exeunt. 



Scene III. London, a room in the Kings Palace. 

Enter King Edward, Arundel, the elder Spenser, 
the younger Spenser, and others. 

K. Edw. Thus after many threats of wrathful war 
Triumpheth England's Edward with his friends ; 
And triumph Edward with his friends uncontroll'd ! 
My lord of Glocester, do you hear the news ? 

Y. Spen. What news, my lord ? 5 

K. Edw. Why, man, they say there is great execu- 
tion 
Done through the realm. My lord of Arundel, 
You have the note, have you not ? 

Arun. From the lieutenant of the Tower, my lord. 

K. Edw. I pray let us see it. [Takes the note from 
Arundel.] What have we there? 10 

Read it, Spenser. 

[Gives the note to the younger Spenser, 
who reads their names. 
Why so ; they bark'd apace a month ago : 
Now, on my life, they'll neither bark nor bite, 
Now, sirs, the news from France ? Glocester, I trow, 
The lords of France love England's gold so well, 15 
As Isabella gets no aid from thence. 
What now remains? have you proclaim'd, my lord, 
Reward for them can bring in Mortimer? 



ACT IV. SCENE III. 73 

Y. Spen. My lord, we have ; and if he be in 
England, 
'A will be had ere long, I doubt it not. 20 

K. Edw. If, dost thou say ? Spenser, as true as 
death, 
He is in England's ground ; our portmasters 
Are not so careless of their king's command. 

Enter a Messenger. 

How now ! what news with thee ? from whence come 
these ? 
Mes. Letters, my lord, and tidings forth of 
France 25 

To you, my lord of Glocester, from Levune. 

[Gives letters to the younger Spenser. 

K. Edw. Read. 

Y. Spen. [reading]. My duty to your honour pre- 
mised, &C, / have, according to instructions in that 
behalf, dealt with the King of France his lords, and 
effected, that the queen, all discontented and disco?nforted, 
is gone : whither, if you ask, with Sir John of Hainault, 
brother to the marquis, into Flanders. With them are 
gone Lord Edmund, and the Lord Mortitner, having in 
their company divers of your nation, and others ; and, 
as constant report goeth, they intend to give King Edward 
battle in England, sooner than he can look for them. 
This is all the news of i?nport. — Your honour's in all 
service, Levune. 

K. Edw. Ah, villains, hath that Mortimer escap'd ? 
With him is Edmund gone associate? 41 

And will Sir John of Hainault lead the round ? 



74 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Welcome, a' God's name, madam, and your son ! 

England shall welcome you and all your rout. 

Gallop apace, bright Phoebus, through the sky, / 45 

And dusky Night, in rusty iron car, 

Between you both shorten the time, I pray, 

That I may see that most desired day, 

When we may meet these traitors in the field ! 

Ah, nothing grieves me, but my little boy 50 

Is thus misled to countenance their ills ! 

Come, friends, to Bristow, there to make us strong ; 

And, winds, as equal be to bring them in, 

As you injurious were to bear them forth ! {^Exeunt. 

Scene IV. The Queen s Camp, near Orivell, Suffolk. 

Enter Queen Isabella, Prince Edward, Kent, the 
younger Mortimer, and Sir John of Hainault. 

Q. /sab. Now, lords, our loving friends and country- 
men, 
Welcome to England all, with prosperous winds ! 
Our kindest friends in Belgia have we left, 
To cope with friends at home ; a heavy case 
When force to force is knit, and sword and glaive 5 
In civil broils make kin and countrymen 
Slaughter themselves in others, and their sides 
With their own weapons gor'd ! But what's the help ? 
Misgovern'd kings are cause of all this wreck ; 
And, Edward, thou art one among them all, 10 

Whose looseness hath betray 'd thy land to spoil, 
And made the channel overflow with blood 
Of thine own people ; patron shouldst thou be, 
But thou 



ACT IV. SCENE V. 75 

Y. Mor. Nay, madam, if you be a warrior, 15 

You must not grow so passionate in speeches. 
Lords, sith that we are by sufferance of heaven 
Arriv'd and armed in this prince's right, 
Here for our country's cause swear we to him 
All homage, fealty, and forwardness ; 20 

And for the open wrongs and injuries 
Edward hath done to us, his queen, and land, 
We come in arms to wreak it with the sword ; 
That England's queen in peace may repossess 
Her dignities and honours : and withal 25 

We may remove these flatterers from the king, 
That havock England's wealth and treasury. 

Sir J. Sound trumpets, my lord, and forward let 
us march. 
Edward will think we come to flatter him. 

Kent. I would he never had been flatter'd more ! 

[Exeunt. 

Scene V. Near Bristol. 

Enter King Edward, Baldock, and the younger 
Spenser. 

Y. Spen. Fly, fly, my lord ! the queen is over- strong ; 
Her friends do multiply, and yours do fail. 
Shape we our course to Ireland, there to breathe. 

K. Edw. What, was I born to fly, and run away, 
And leave the Mortimers conquerors behind ? 5 

Give me my horse, let us reinforce our troops, 
And in this bed of honour die with fame. 

Bald. O no, my lord ! this princely resolution 
Fits not the time ; away ! we are pursued. [Exeunt. 



7 6 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Enter Kent, with a sword and target. 

Kent. This way he fled ; but I am cometoo late. 
Edward, alas, my heart relents for thee ! 1 1 

Proud traitor, Mortimer, why dost thou chase 
Thy lawful king, thy sovereign, with thy sword ? 
Vile wretch, and why hast thou, of all unkind, 
Borne arms against thy brother and thy king? 15 

Rain showers of vengeance on my cursed head, 
Thou God, to whom in justice it belongs 
To punish this unnatural revolt ! 
Edward, this Mortimer aims at thy life : 
O, fly him then ! But, Edmund, calm this rage ; 20 
Dissemble, or thou diest ; for Mortimer 
And Isabel do kiss, while they conspire : 
And yet she bears a face of love forsooth : 
Fie on that love that hatcheth death and hate ! 
Edmund, away ! Bristow to Longshanks' blood 25 

Is false ; be not found single for suspect : 
Proud Mortimer pries near into thy walks. /^ 

Enter Queen Isabella, Prince Edward, the younger 
Mortimer, and Sir John of Hainault. 

Q. Isab. Successful battle gives the God of kings 
To them that fight in right, and fear his wrath. 
Since then successfully we have prevail'd 30 

Thanked be heaven's great architect, and you ! 
Ere farther we proceed, my noble lords, 
We here create our well-beloved son, 
Of love and care unto his royal person, 
Lord Warden of the realm, and sith the fates 35 

Have made his father so infortunate, 



ACT IV. SCENE V. 77 

Deal you, my lords, in this, my loving lords, 
As to your wisdoms fittest seems in all. 

Kent. Madam, without offence if I may ask, 
How will you deal with Edward in his fall ? 40 

Prince. Tell me, good uncle, what Edward do you 

mean ? 
Kent. Nephew, your father ; I dare not call him 

king. 
Y. Mor. My lord of Kent, what needs these ques- 
tions ? 
'Tis not in her controlment nor in ours ; 
But as the realm and parliament shall please, 45 

So shall your brother be disposed of. — 
I like not this relenting mood in Edmund : 
Madam, 'tis good to look to him betimes. 

[Aside to the Queen. 
Q. Isab. My lord, the Mayor of Bristow knows our 

mind. 
Y. Mor. Yea, madam ; and they scape not easily 
That fled the field. 

Q. Isab. Baldock is with the king : 5 1 

A goodly chancellor is he not, my lord ? 

Sir J. So are the Spensers, the father and the 

son. 
Y. Mor. This Edward is the ruin of the realm. 

Enter Rice ap Howel, and the Mayor of Bristow, 
with the elder Spenser prisoner, a?id Attendants. 

Rice. God save Queen Isabel and her princely 
son ! 55 



78 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Madam, the Mayor and citizens of Bristow, 

In sign of love and duty to this presence, 

Present by me this traitor to the state, 

Spenser, the father to that wanton Spenser, 

That, like the lawless Catiline of Rome, 60 

Revell'd in England's wealth and treasury. 

Q. Isab. We thank you all. 

Y. Mor. Your loving care in this 

Deserveth princely favours and rewards. 
But where's the king and the other Spenser fled ? 

Rice. Spenser the son, created Earl of Glocester, 
Is with that smooth-tongu'd scholar Baldock gone, 66 
And shipp'd but late for Ireland with the king. 

Y. Mor. Some whirlwind fetch them back or sink 
them all. — [Aside. 

They shall be started thence, I doubt it not. 

P. Edw. Shall I not see the king my father 
yet ? 70 

Kent. Unhappy Edward, chas'd from England's 
bounds. 

Sir J. Madam, what resteth, why stand you in a 
muse ? 

Q. Isab. I rue my lord's ill-fortune ; but, alas ! 
Care of my country call'd me to this war ! 

Y. Mor. Madam, have done with care and sad 
complaint ; 75 

Your king hath wrong'd your country and himself, 
And we must seek to right it as we may. — 
Meanwhile, have hence this rebel to the block. 



ACT TV. SCENE VI. 79 

E. Spen. Rebel is he that fights against the prince ; 
So fought not they that fought in Edward's right. 80 

Y. Mor. Take him away, he prates. 

[Exeunt Attendants with the elder Spenser. 
You, Rice ap Howel, 
Shall do good service to her majesty* 
Being of countenance in your country here, 
To follow these rebellious runagates. — 
We in meanwhile, madam, must take advice, 85 

How Baldock, Spenser, and their complices, 
May in their fall be follow'd to their end. [Exeunt. 

Scene VI. Within the Abbey of Neath. 

E?iter the Abbot, Monks, King Edward, the younger 
Spenser, and Baldock (the three last disguised). 

Abbot. Have you no doubt, my lord ; have you no 
fear ; 
As silent and as careful we will be, 
To keep your royal person safe with us, 
Free from suspect, and fell invasion 
Of such as have your majesty in chase, 5 

Yourself, and those your chosen company, 
As danger of this stormy time requires. 

K. Edw. Father, thy face should harbour no 
deceit. 
O ! hadst thou ever been a king, thy heart, 
Pierc'd deeply with sense of my distress, 10 

Could not but take compassion of my state ! 
Stately and proud, in riches and in train, 
Whilom I was, powerful, and full of pomp : 



80 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

But what is he whom rule and empery 

Have not in life or death made miserable ? 15 

Come, Spenser, come, Baldock, come, sit down by me ; 

Make trial now of that philosophy, 

That in our famous nurseries of arts 

Thou suck'dst from Plato and from Aristotle. — 

Father, this life contemplative is heaven : 20 

O, that I might this life in quiet lead ! 

But we, alas, are chas'd — and you, my friends, 

Your lives and my dishonour they pursue. — 

Yet, gentle monks, for treasure, gold nor fee, 

Do you betray us and our company. 25 

First Monk. Your grace may sit secure, if none 
but we 
Do wot of your abode. 

Y. Spen. Not one alive ; but shrewdly I suspect 
A gloomy fellow in a mead below ; 
'A gave a long look after us, my lord ; 30 

And all the land I know is up in arms, 
Arms that pursue our lives with deadly hate. 

Bald. We were embark'd for Ireland ; wretched we, 
With awkward winds and sore tempests driven, 
To fall on shore, and here to pine in fear 35 

Of Mortimer and his confederates ! 

K. Edw. Mortimer ! who talks of Mortimer ? 
Who wounds me with the name of Mortimer, 
That bloody man ? — Good father, on thy lap 
Lay I this head, laden with mickle care. 40 

O might I never ope these eyes again, 
Never again lift up this drooping head, 
O, never more lift up this dying heart .' 



ACT IV. SCENE VI. 81 

Y. Spen. Look up, my lord. — Baldock, this drow- 
siness 
Betides no good ; here even we are betray'd. 45 

Enter, with Welsh hooks, Rice ap Howel, a Mower, 
and Leicester. 

Mow. Upon my life, these be the men ye seek. 

Rice. Fellow, enough. — My lord, I pray be short ; 
A fair commission warrants what we do. 

Leices. The queen's commission, urg'd by Morti- 
mer : 
What cannot gallant Mortimer with the queen ? — 50 
Alas, see where he sits, and hopes unseen 
T' escape their hands that seek to reave his life ! 
Too true it is, Que?n dies vidit veniens superbum, 
Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem. 

But, Leicester, leave to grow so passionate. — 55 

Spenser and Baldock, by no other names, 
I arrest you of high treason here. 
Stand not on titles, but obey th' arrest ; 
'Tis in the name of Isabel the queen. — 
My lord, why droop you thus ? 60 

K. Edw. O day the last of all my bliss on earth ! 
Centre of all misfortune ! O my stars, 
Why do you lour unkindly on a king? 
Comes Leicester, then, in Isabella's name, 
To take my life, my company from me ? 65 

Here, man, rip up this panting breast of mine, 
And take my heart in rescue of my friends. 

Rice. Away with them ! 



82 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Y. Speh. It may become thee yet 

To let us take our farewell of his grace. 

Abbot. My heart with pity earns to see this sight ; 
A king to bear these words and proud commands ! 

f Aside. 
K. Edw. Spenser, ah, sweet Spenser, thus then 
must we part ? 

Y. Spen. We must, my lord ; so will the angry 
heavens. 

K. Edw. Nay, so will hell and cruel Mortimer ; 
The gentle heavens have not to do in this. 75 

Bald. My lord, it is in vain to grieve or storm. 
Here humbly of your grace we take our leaves ; 
Our lots are cast ; I fear me, so is thine. 

K. Edw. In heaven we may, in earth ne'er shall 
we meet : — 
And, Leicester, say, what shall become of us? 80 

Leices. Your majesty must go to Killingworth. 

K. Edw. Must ! it is somewhat hard when kings 

must go. 
Leices. Here is a litter ready for your grace, 
That waits your pleasure, and the day grows old. 

Rice. As good be gone, as stay and be benighted. 

K. Edw. A litter hast thou ? lay me in a hearse, 
And to the gates of hell convey me hence ; 
Let Pluto's bells ring out my fatal knell, 
And hags howl for my death at Charon's shore ; 
For friends hath Edward none but these, and these — 
And these must die under a tyrant's sword. 91 



ACT IV. SCENE VI. 83 

Rice. My lord, be going ; care not for these ; 
For we shall see them shorter by the heads. 

K. Edw. Well, that shall be, shall be : part we 
must ; 
Sweet Spenser, gentle Baldock, part we must. — 95 
Hence, feigned weeds ! unfeigned are my woes. — 

[ Throwing off his disguise. 
Father, farewell. — Leicester, thou stay'st for me ; 
And go I must. — Life, farewell, with my friends ! 

[Exeunt King Edward and Leicester. 

Y. Spen. Oh, is he gone ? is noble Edward gone ? 
Parted from hence, never to see us more ? 100 

Rent, sphere of heaven ! and, fire, forsake thy orb ! 
Earth, melt to air ! gone is my sovereign, 
Gone, gone, alas, never to make return ! 

Bald. Spenser, I see our souls are fleeting hence ; 
We are deprived the sunshine of our life. 105 

Make for a new life, man ; throw up thy eyes 
And heart and hand to heaven's immortal throne ; 
Pay nature's debt with cheerful countenance ; 
Reduce we all our lessons unto this, — 
To die, sweet Spenser, therefore live we all ; no 

Spenser, all live to die, and rise to fall.y 

Rice. Come, come, keep these preachments till you 
come to the place appointed. Yon, and such as you 
are, have made wise work in England. Will your 
lordships away ? 115 

Mow. Your lordship, I trust, will remember me ? 

Rice. Remember thee, fellow ! what else ? Follow 
me to the town. [Exeunt, 



84 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

ACT V. 

Scene I. Killingworth Castle. 

Enter King Edward, Leicester, the Bishop of 
Winchester, and Trussel. 

Leices. Be patient, good my lord, cease to lament ; 
Imagine Killingworth Castle were your court, 
And that you lay for pleasure here a space, 
Not of compulsion or necessity. 

K. Edw. Leicester, if gentle words might comfort 
me, 5 

Thy speeches long ago had eas'd my sorrows, 
For kind and loving hast thou always been. 
The griefs of private men are soon allay'd ; 
But not of kings. The forest deer, being struck, 
Runs to an herb that closeth up the wounds ; 10 

But when the imperial lion's flesh is gor'd, 
He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw, 
[And], highly scorning that the lowly earth 
Should drink his blood, mounts up to the air : 
And so it fares with me, whose dauntless mind 15 

Th' ambitious Mortimer would seek to curb, 
And that unnatural queen, false Isabel, 
That thus hath pent and mew'd me in a prison ; 
For such outrageous passions cloy my soul, 
As with the wings of rancour and disdain, 20 

Full often am I soaring up to heaven, 
To plain me to the gods against them both. 
But when I call to mind I am a king, 
Methinks I should revenge me of my wrongs, 



ACT V. SCENE I. 85 

That Mortimer and Isabel have done. 25 

But what are kings, when regiment is gone, 

But perfect shadows in a sunshine day ? 

My nobles rule ; I bear the name of king ; 

I wear the crown but am controll'd by them, 

By Mortimer, and my unconstant queen 30 

Who spots my nuptial bed with infamy; 

Whilst I am lodg'd within this cave of care, 

Where sorrow at my elbow still attends, 

To company my heart with sad laments, 

That bleeds within me for this strange exchange. 35 

But tell me, must I now resign my crown, 

To make usurping Mortimer a king ? 

Bish. of Win. Your grace mistakes; it is for 
England's good 
And princely Edward's right we crave the crown. 

K. Edw. No, 'tis for Mortimer, not Edward's 
head ; 40 

For he's a lamb, encompassed by wolves, 
Which in a moment will abridge his life. 
But, if proud Mortimer do wear this crown, 
Heavens turn it to a blaze of quenchless fire ! 
Or, like the snaky wreath of Tisiphon, 45 

Engirt the temples of his hateful head ! 
So shall not England's vine be perished, 
But Edward's name survive, though Edward dies. 

Leices. My lord, why waste you thus the time 
away ? 
They stay your answer ; will you yield your crown ? 

K. Edw. Ah, Leicester, weigh how hardly I can 
brook 51 



86 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

To lose my crown and kingdom without cause ; 

To give ambitious Mortimer my right, 

That like a mountain overwhelms my bliss ; 

In which extreme my mind here murdered is ! 55 

But that the heavens appoint I must obey. — 

Here, take my crown ; the life of Edward too ; 

[ Taking off the trown. 
Two kings in England cannot reign at once. 
But stay a while : let me be king till night, >- 
That I may gaze upon this glittering crown ; 60 

So shall my eyes receive their last content, 
My head, the latest honour due to it, 
And jointly both yield up their wished right. 
Continue ever, thou celestial sun ; 
Let never silent night possess this clime : 65 

Stand still, you watches of the element ; 
All times and seasons, rest you at a stay, 
That Edward may be still fair England's king ! K 
But day's bright beam doth vanish fast away, 
And needs I must resign my wished crown. 70 

Inhuman creatures, nursed with tiger's milk, 
Why gape you for your sovereign's overthrow ? 
My diadem, I mean, and guiltless life. 
See, monsters, see ! I'll wear my crown again. 

[Putting on the crown. 
What, fear you not the fury of your king ? — 75 

But, hapless Edward, thou art fondly led ; 
They pass not for thy frowns as late they did, 
But seek to make a new-elected king ; 
Which fills my mind with strange despairing thoughts, 
Which thoughts are martyred with endless torments ; 
And in this torment comfort find I none, 81 



ACT V. SCENE I. 87 

But that I feel the crown upon my head ; 
And therefore let me wear it yet a while. 

Trus. My lord, the parliament must have present 
news ; 
And therefore say, will you resign or no ? 85 

[The King rageth. 

K. Edw. I'll not resign, but whilst I live [be king]. 
Traitors, be gone, and join you with Mortimer ! 
Elect, conspire, install, do what you will : 
Their blood and yours shall seal these treacheries. 

Bish. of Win. This answer we'll return, and so 
farewell. [Going with Trussel. 

Leices. Call them again, my lord, and speak them 
fair ; 91 

For if they go, the prince shall lose his right. 

K. Ediu. Call thou them back ; I have no power 
to speak. 

Leices. My lord, the king is willing to resign. 

Bish. of Win. If he be not, let him choose. 95 

K. Edw. O would I might ! but heavens and earth 
conspire 
To make me miserable. Here, receive my crown. 
Receive it ? no, these innocent hands of mine 
Shall not be guilty of so foul a crime : 
He of you all that most desires my blood, 100 

And will be call'd the murderer of a king, 
Take it. What, are you mov'd ? pity you me ? 
Then send for unrelenting Mortimer, 
And Isabel, whose eyes, being turn'd to steel, 



B8 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Will sooner sparkle fire than shed a tear. 105 

Yet stay ; for rather than I'll look on them, 

Here, here ! [Gives the croivn.] Now, sweet God of 

heaven, 
Make me despise this transitory pomp, 
And sit for aye enthronized in heaven ! 
Come, death, and with thy fingers close my eyes, no 
Or if I live, let me forget myself ! 

Bish. of Win. My lord, — 

K. Edw. Call me not lord ; away, out of my sight ! 
Ah, pardon me ! grief makes me lunatic. 
Let not that Mortimer protect my son ; 115 

More safety there is in a tiger's jaws 
Than his embracements. Bear this to the queen, 
Wet with my tears, and dried again with sighs ; 

[Gives a handkerchief. 
If with the sight thereof she be not mov'd, 
Return it back and dip it in my blood. 120 

Commend me to my son, and bid him rule 
Better than I : yet how have I transgress'd 
Unless it be with too much clemency ? 

Trus. And thus, most humbly do we take our leave. 
[Exeunt the Bishop of Winchester and 
Trussel with the crown. 

K. Edw. Farewell ; I know the next news that 
they bring 125 

Will be my death ; and welcome shall it be ; 
To wretched men death is felicity. 

Leices. Another post ! what news brings he? 



ACT V. SCENE I. 89 

Enter Berkeley, who gives a paper to Leicester. 

K. Ediv. Such news as I expect. — Come, Berkeley, 
come, 
And tell thy message to my naked breast. 130 

Berk. My lord, think not a thought so villanous 
Can harbour in a man of noble birth. 
To do your highness service and devoir, 
And save you from your foes, Berkeley would die. 

Leices. My lord, the council of the queen commands 
That I resign my charge. 136 

K. Edw. And who must keep me now ? Must 

you, ray lord ? 
Berk. Ay, my most gracious lord ; so 'tis decreed. 

K. Edw. [taking the paper]. By Mortimer, whose 
name is written here ! 
Well may I rent his name that rends my heart. 14° 

[Tears it. 
This poor revenge hath something eas'd my mind. 
So may his limbs be torn, as is this paper ! 
Hear me' immortal Jove, and grant it too ! 

Berk. Your grace must hence with me to Berkeley 
straight. 

K. Edw. Whither you will ; all places are alike, 
And every earth is fit for burial. 146 

Leices. Favour him, my lord, as much as lieth in you 

Berk. Even so betide my soul as I use him. 

K. Edw. Mine enemy hath pitied my estate, 
And that's the cause that I am now remov'd. 150 



90 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Berk. And thinks your grace that Berkeley will be 

cruel? 
K. Edw. I know not ; but of this am I assur'd, 
That death ends all, and I can die but once. — 
Leicester, farewell. 

Leices. Not yet, my lord ; I'll bear you on your way. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. Westminster, a room in the palace. 

Enter Queen Isabella and the younger Mortimer. 

Y. Mor. Fair Isabel, now have we our desire ; 
The proud corrupters of the light-brain'd king 
Have done their homage to the lofty gallows, 
And he himself lies in captivity. 

Be rul'd by me, and we will rule the realm. 5 

In any case take heed of childish fear, 
For now we hold an old wolf by the ears, 
That, if he slip, will seize upon us both, 
And gripe the sorer, being grip'd himself. 
Think therefore, madam, that imports us much 10 
To erect your son with all the speed we may, 
And that I be protector over him ; 
For our behoof, 'twill bear the greater sway 
Whenas a king's name shall be under-writ. 

Q. Isab. Sweet Mortimer, the life of Isabel, 15 

Be thou persuaded that I love thee well ; 
And therefore, so the prince my son be safe, 
Whom I esteem as dear as these mine eyes, 
Conclude against his father what thou wilt, 
And I myself will willingly subscribe. 20 



ACT V. SCENE II. 9 1 

Y. Mor. First would I hear news he were depos'd, 
And then let me alone to handle him. 

Enter Messenger. 

Letters . from whence ? 

Mess. From Killingworth, my lord. 

Q. Isab. How fares my lord the king ? 
Mess. In health, madam, but full of pensiveness. 
Q. Isab. Alas, poor soul, would I could ease his 
grief ! 26 

Enter the Bishop of Winchester with the crown. 

Thanks, gentle Winchester. — Sirrah, be gone. 

[Exit Messenger. 
Bish. of Win. The king hath willingly resign 'd his 
crown. 

Q. Isab. O happy news ! send for the prince my 

son. 

Bish. of Win. Further, or this letter was seal'd, 
Lord Berkeley came, 30 

So that he now is gone from Killingworth ; 
And we have heard that Edmund laid a plot 
To set his brother free ; no more but so. 
The lord of Berkeley is so pitiful 

As Leicester that had charge of him before. 35 

Q. Isab. Then let some other be his guardian. 
Y. Mor. Let me alone ; here is the privy seal.— 
[Exit the Bishop of Winchester. 
Who's there ? — Call hither Gurney and Matrevis. — 

[To Attendants within. 



9 2 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

To dash the heavy-headed Edmund's drift, 

Berkeley shall be discharg'd, the king remov'd, 40 

And none but we shall know where he lieth. 

Q. Isab. But, Mortimer, as long as he survives, 
What safety rests for us, or for my son ? 

Y. Mor. Speak, shall he presently be despatch'd 
and die ? 

Q. Isab. I would he were, so 'twere not by my 
means. 

Enter Matrevis and Gurney. 

Y. Mor. Enough. Matrevis, write a letter pres- 
ently 
Unto the lord of Berkeley from ourself 
That he resign the king to thee and Gurney ; 
And when 'tis done, we will subscribe our name. 
Mat. It shall be done, my lord. [ Writes. 

Y. Mor. Gurney, — 

Gur. My lord ? 50 

Y. Mor. As thou intend'st to rise by Mortimer, 
Who now makes Fortune's wheel turn as he please, 
Seek all the means thou canst to make him droop, 
And neither give him kind word nor good look. 

Gur. I warrant you, my lord. 55 

Y. Mor. And this above the rest ; because we hear 
That Edmund casts to work his liberty, 
Remove him still from place to place by night, 
Till at the last he come to Killingworth, 
And then from thence to Berkeley back again ; 60 

And by the way, to make him fret the more, 



ACT V. SCENE II. 93 

Speak curstly to him ; and in any case 

Let no man comfort him, if he chance to weep, 

But amplify his grief with bitter words. 

Mat. Fear not, my lord ; we'll do as you command. 

Y. Mor. So now away ! post thitherwards amain. 

Q. Isab. Whither goes this letter ? to my lord the 
king ? 

Commend me humbly to his majesty, 

And tell him that I labour all in vain 

To ease his grief, and work his liberty ; 70 

And bear him this as witness of my love. [Gives ring- 
Mat. I will, madam. [Exit with Gurney. 
Y. Mor. Finely dissembled ! Do so still, sweet 
queen. 

Here comes the young prince, with the Earl of Kent. 
Q. Isab. Something he whispers in his childish ears. 
Y. Mor. If he have such access unto the prince, 

Our plots and stratagems will soon be dash'd. 

Q. Isab. Use Edmund friendly, as if all were well. 

Enter Prince Edward, and Kent talking with him. 

Y. Mor. How fares my honourable lord of Kent ? 
Kent. In health, sweet Mortimer. — How fares your 

grace ? 80 

Q. Isab. Well, if my lord your brother were en- 

larg'd. 
Kent. I hear of late he hath depos'd himself. 
Q. Isab. The more my grief. 
Y. Mor. . And mine. 



94 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Kent. Ah, they do dissemble ! 

[Aside. 
Q. Isab. Sweet son, come hither ; I must talk with 
thee. 

Y. Mor. You, being his uncle and the next of blood, 
Do look to be protector o'er the prince. 86 

Kent. Not I, my lord ; who should protect the son, 
But she that gave him life ? I mean the queen. 

P. Edw. Mother, persuade me not to wear the 
crown : 
Let him be king ; I am too young to reign. 90 

Q. Isab. But be content, seeing 'tis his highness' 

pleasure. 
P. Edw. Let me but see him first, and then I will. 
Kent. Ay, do, sweet nephew. 
Q. Isab. Brother, you know it is impossible. 
P. Edw. Why, is he dead ? 

Q. Isab. No, God forbid ! 95 

Kent. I would those words proceeded from your 

heart ! 

Y. Mor. Inconstant Edmund, dost thou favour 
him, 
That wast a cause of his imprisonment ? 

Kent. The more cause have I now to make amends. 
Y. Mor. [aside to Q. Isab.]. I tell thee, 'tis not 
meet that one so false 100 

Should come about the person of a prince. — 
My lord, he hath betray'd the king his brother, 
And therefore trust him not. 



ACT V. SCENE III. 95 

P. Edw. But he repents, and sorrows for it now. 
Q. Isab. Come, son, and go with this gentle lord 
and me. 105 

P. Edw. With you I will, but not with Mortimer. 
Y. Mor. Why, youngling, 'sdain'st thou so of Mor- 
timer ? 
Then I will carry thee by force away. 

P. Edw. Help, uncle Kent ! Mortimer will wrong 

me. 
Q. Isab. Brother Edmund, strive not ; we are his 
friends; no 

Isabel is nearer than the Earl of Kent. 

Kent. Sister, Edward is my charge ; redeem him. 
Q. Isab. Edward is my son, and I will keep him. 
Kent. Mortimer shall know that he hath wronged 
me ! 
Hence will I haste to Killingworth Castle, 115 

And rescue aged Edward from his foes, J( 
To be reveng'd on Mortimer and thee. [Aside. 

[Exeunt, on one side, Queen Isabella, 
Prince Edward, and the younger 
Mortimer ; on the other, Kent. 

Scene III. Near Killingworth Castle. 

Enter Matrevis, Gurney, and Soldiers, with King 
Edward. 

Mat. My lord, be not pensive ; we are your 
friends ; 
Men are ordain'd to live in misery, 
Therefore, come ; dalliance dangereth our lives. 



96 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

K. Edw. Friends, whither must unhappy Edward 
go? 
Will hateful Mortimer appoint no rest ? 5 

Must I be vexed like the nightly bird, 
Whose sight is loathsome to all winged fowls ? 
When will the fury of his mind assuage ? 
When will his heart be satisfied with blood ? 
If mine will serve, unbowel straight this breast, 10 

And give my heart to Isabel and him : 
It is the chief est mark they level at. 

Gur. Not so, my liege ; the queen hath given this 
charge, 
To keep your grace in safety : 
Your passions make your dolours to increase. 15 

K. Edw. This usage makes my misery increase. 
But can my air of life continue long 
When all my senses are annoy'd with stench ? 
Within a dungeon England's king is kept, 
Where I am starv'd for want of sustenance ; 20 

My daily diet is heart-breaking sobs, 
That almost rents the closet of my heart ; 
Thus lives old Edward not reliev'd by any, 
And so must die, though pitied by many. 
Oh, water, gentle friends, to cool my thirst, 25 

And clear my body from foul excrements ! 

Mat. Here's channel water, as our charge is given : 
Sit down, for we'll be barbers to your grace. 

K. Edw. Traitors, away ! what, will you murder 
me, 
Or choke your sovereign with puddle-water ? 30 



ACT V. SCENE III. 97 

Gur. No, but wash your face, and shave away your 
beard, 
Lest you be known, and so be rescued. 

Mat. Why strive you thus ? your labour is in vain. 

K. Edw. The wren may strive against the lion's 
strength, 
But all in vain : so vainly do I strive 35 

To seek for mercy at a tyrant's hand. 

[ They wash him with puddle-water, and 
shave his beard away. 
Immortal powers, that know the painful cares 
That wait upon my poor distressed soul, 
O level all your looks upon these daring men, 
That wrong their liege and sovereign, England's king. 
O Gaveston, it is for thee that I am wrong'd, 41 

For me, both thou and both the Spensers died ! 
And for your sakes a thousand wrongs I'll take. 
The Spensers' ghosts, wherever they remain, 
Wish well to mine ; then, tush, for them I'll die. 45 

Mat. 'Twixt theirs and yours shall be no enmity. 
Come, come, away ! now put the torches out : 
We'll enter in by darkness to Killingworth. 

Gur. How now, who comes there ? 

Enter Kent. 

Mat. Guard the king sure : it is the Earl of Kent. 
K. Edw. O, gentle brother, help to rescue me ! 51 
Mat. Keep them asunder ; thrust in the king. 
Kent. Soldiers, let me but talk to him one word. 
Gur. Lay hands upon the earl for his assault. 



98 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Kent. Lay down your weapons, traitors ! yield the 

king ! 55 

Mat. Edmund, yield thou thyself, or thou shall 

die. 
Kent. Base villains, wherefore do you gripe me 

thus ? 
Gur. Bind him and so convey him to the court. 
Kent. Where is the court but here ? here is the 
king. 
And I will visit him ; why stay you me ? 60 

Mat. The court is where Lord Mortimer remains ; 
Thither shall your honour go ; and so farewell. 

[Exeunt Matrevis and Gurney, with 
King Edward. 
Kent. O miserable is that commonweal, 
Where lords keep courts, and kings are lock'd in 
prison ! 
First Sold. Wherefore stay we ? on, sirs, to the 
court. 65 

Kent. Ay, lead me whither you will, even to my 
death, 
Seeing that my brother cannot be releas'd. [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. Westminster, a room in the palace. 

Enter the younger Mortimer. 

Y. Mor. The king must die, or Mortimer goes 
down ; 
The commons now begin to pity him : 
Yet he that is the cause of Edward's death, 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 99 

Is sure to pay for it when his son's of age ; 

And therefore will I do it cunningly. 5 

This letter written by a friend of ours, 

Contains his death, yet bids them save his life ; [Reads. 

Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est, 

Fear not to kill the king, 'tis good he die. 

But read it thus, and that's another sense ; 10 

Mdwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est, 

Kill not the king, 'tis good to fear the worst. 

Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go, 

That, being dead, if it chance to be found, 

Matrevis and the rest may bear the blame, 15 

And we be quit that caus'd it to be done. 

Within this room is lock'd the messenger 

That shall convey it, and perform the rest : 

And by a secret token that he bears, 

Shall he be murder'd when the deed is done. — 20 

Lightborn, come forth ! 

Enter Lightborn. 

Art thou so resolute as thou wast ? 

Light. What else, my lord ? and far more resolute. 
Y. Mor. And hast thou cast how to accomplish it? 
Light. Ay, ay ; and none shall know which way he 
died. • 25 

Y. Mor. But at his looks, Lightborn, thou wilt 
relent. 

Light. Relent ! ha, ha ! I use much to relent. 
Y. Mor. Well, do it bravely, and be secret. 
Light. You shall not need to give instructions ; 
'Tis not the first time I have kill'd a man : 30 



ioo EDWARD THE SECOND. 

I leam'd in Naples how to poison flowers ; 

To strangle with a lawn thrust down the throat ; 

To pierce the windpipe with a needle's point ; 

Or, whilst one is asleep, to take a quill 

And blow a little powder in his ears ; 35 

Or open his mouth, and pour quick-silver down. 

But yet I have a braver way than these. 

Y. Mor. What's that ? 

Light. Nay, you shall pardon me ; none shall know 
my tricks. 

Y. Mor. I care not how it is, so it be not spied. 40 
Deliver this to Gurney and Matrevis : [Gives letter. 
At every ten mile end thou hast a horse : 
Take this [Gives money] : away, and never see me 
more ! 

Light No ? 

Y. Mor. No ; unless thou bring me news of Ed- 
ward's death. 45 

Light. That will I quickly do. Farewell, my lord. 

[Exit. 

Y. Mor. The prince I rule, the queen do I com- 
mand, 
And with a lowly conge to the ground, 
The proudest lords salute me as I pass : 
I seal, I cancel, I do what I will. 50 

Fear'd am I more than lov'd ; — let me be fear'd, 
And, when I frown, make all the court look pale. 
I view the prince with Aristarchus' eyes, 
Whose looks were as a breeching to a boy. 
They thrust upon me the protectorship, $5 

And sue to me for that that I desire. 



ACT V. SCENE IV. ioi 

While at the council-table, grave enough, 
And not unlike a bashful puritan, 
First I complain of imbecility, 

Saying it is onus quam gravissimum ; 60 

Till, being interrupted by my friends, 
Suscepi that provinciam as they term it ; 
And to conclude, I am Protector now. 
Now is all sure ; the queen and Mortimer 
Shall rule the realm, the king ; and none rules us. 65 
Mine enemies will I plague, my friends advance ; 
And what I list command who dare control ? 
Major sum quam cut possit fort una nocere j 
And that this be the coronation-day, 
It pleaseth me, and Isabel the queen. 70 

[Trumpets within. 
The trumpets sound, I must go take my place. 

Enter King Edward the Third, Queen Isabella, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, Champion, and 
Nobles. 

Archb. of Cant. Long live King Edward, by the 
grace of God r 
King of England, and Lord of Ireland 1 

Cham. If any Christian, Heathen, Turk, or Jew, 
Dare but affirm, that Edward's not true king, 75 

And will avouch his saying with the sword, 
I am the champion that will combat him. 

Y. Mor. None comes, sound trumpets ! [Trumpets. 

K. Edw. Third. Champion, here's to thee. 

[Gives purse. 



102 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Q. Isab. Lord Mortimer, now take him to your 
charge. 

Enter Soldiers, with Kent prisoner. 

Y. Mor. What traitor have we there with blades 

and bills ? 80 

First Sold. Edmund, the Earl of Kent. 
K. Edw. Third. What hath he done ? 

First Sold. 'A would have taken the king away 

perforce, 
As we were bringing him to Killingworth. 

Y. Mor. Did you attempt his rescue, Edmund ? 

speak. 
Kent. Mortimer, I did ; he is our king, 85 

And thou compell'st this prince to wear the crown. 
Y. Mor. Strike off his head ; he shall have martial 

law. 
Kent. Strike off my head ! base traitor, I defy 

thee ! 
K. Edw. Third. My lord, he is my uncle, and shall 

live. 
Y. Mor. My lord, he is your enemy, and shall die. 
Kent. Stay, villains ! 91 

K. Edw. Third. Sweet mother, if I cannot pardon 

him, 
Entreat my Lord Protector for his life. 

Q. /sad. Son, be content ; I dare not speak a word. 
K. Edw. Third. Nor I ; and yet methinks I should 

command ; 95 

But, seeing I cannot, I'll entreat for him. — 



ACT V. SCENE V. 103 

My lord, if you will let my uncle live, 
I will requite it when I come to age. 

Y. Mor. 'Tis for your highness' good, and for the 

realm's. — 

How often shall I bid you bear him hence ? 100 

Kent. Art thou king ? must I die at thy command ? 

Y. Mor. At our command. — Once more, away with 

him ! 
Kent. Let me but stay and speak ; I will not go : 
Either my brother or his son is king, 
And none of both them thirst for Edmund's blood : 
And therefore, soldiers, whither will you hale me? 

[Soldiers hale Kent away, and carry him 
to be beheaded. 
K. Edw. Third. What safety may I look for at his 
hands, 
If that my uncle shall be murder'd thus ? 

Q. /sab. Fear not, sweet boy ; I'll guard thee from 
thy foes ; 
Had Edmund liv'd, he would have sought thy death. 
Come, son, we'll ride a-hunting in the park. 1 1 1 

K. Edw. Third. And shall my uncle Edmund ride 
with us ? 

Q. /sab. He is a traitor ; think not on him ; come. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene V. A room in Berkeley Castle. 

Enter Matrevis and Gurney. 

Mat. Gurney, I wonder the king dies not, 
Being in a vault up to the knees in water, 



104 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

To which the channels of the castle run, 

From whence a damp continually ariseth, 

That were enough to poison any man, 5 

Much more a king, brought up so tenderly. 

Gur. And so do I, Matrevis : yesternight 
I open'd but the door to throw him meat, 
And I was almost stifled with the savour. 

Mat. He hath a body able to endure 10 

More than we can inflict : and therefore now 
Let us assail his mind another while. 

Gur. Send for him out thence, and I will anger 

him. 
Mat. But stay ; who's this ? 

Enter Lightborn. 

Light. My Lord Protector greets you. 

[Gives letter. 

Gur. What's here ? I know not how to construe 

it. 15 

Mat. Gurney, it was left unpointed for the nonce ; 

Edivardum occidere nolite fanere, 

That's his meaning. 

Light. Know you this token ? I must have the 

king. [Gives token. 

Mat. Ay, stay a while ; thou shalt have answer 

straight. — 20 

This villain's sent to make away the king. 

Gur. I thought as much. 

Mat. And, when the murder's done, 

See how he must be handled for his labour, — 



ACT V. SCENE V. ™5 

Per eat iste I Let him have the king ; 

What else ? Here is the keys, this is the lock ; 25 

Do as you are commanded by my lord. 

Light. I know what I must do. Get you away : 
Yet be not far off ; I shall need your help ; 
See that in the next room I have a fire, 
And get me a spit, and let it be red-hot. 30 

Mat. Very well. 

Gur. Need you anything besides ? 

Light. What else ? a table and a feather-bed. 

Gur. That's all ? 

Light. Ay, ay ; so, when I call you, bring it in. 

Mat. Fear not thou that. 35 

Gur. Here is a light to go into the dungeon. 

[Gives light to Lightborn, and then exit 
with Matrevis. 

Light. So, now 
Must I about this gear ; ne'er was there any 
So finely handled as this king shall be. — 
Foh, here's a place indeed, with all my heart ! 40 

K. Edw. Who's there? what light is that ? where- 
fore com'st thou ? 

Light. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news. 

K. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy 
looks : 
Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me. 

Light. To murden you, my most gracious lord ! 45 
Far is it from my heart to do you harm. 
The queen sent me to see how you were us'd, 
For she relents at this your misery : 



106 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

And what eyes can refrain from shedding tears, 

To see a king in this most piteous state ? 50 

K. Edw. Weep'st thou already? list a while to me, 
And then thy heart, were it as Gurney's is, 
Or as Matrevis', hewn from the Caucasus, 
Yet will it melt, ere I have done my tale. 
This dungeon where they keep me is the sink 55 

Wherein the filth of all the castle falls. 

Light. O villains ! 

K. Edw. And there, in mire and puddle, have I 
stood 
This ten days' space ; and, lest that I should sleep, 
One plays continually upon a drum ; 60 

They give me bread and water, being a king ; 
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance, 
My mind's distemper'd, and my body's numb'd, 
And whether I have limbs or no I know not. 
O, would my blood dropp'd out from every vein, 65 
As doth this water from my tatter'd robes ! 
Tell Isabel, the queen, I look'd not thus, 
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, 
And there unhors'd the Duke of Cleremont. 

Light. O, speak no more, my lord ! this breaks my 
heart. 70 

Lie on this bed, and rest yourself a while. 

K. Edw. These looks of thine can harbour nought 
but death ; 
I see my tragedy written in thy brows. 
Yet stay a while ; forbear thy bloody hand, 
And let me see the stroke before it comes, 75 



ACT V. SCEN'E /'. 107 

That even then when I shall lose my life, 
My mind may be more steadfast on my God. 

Light. What means your highness to mistrust me 
thus ? 

K. Edw. What mean'st thou to dissemble with me 
thus ? 

Light. These hands were never stain'd with inno- 
cent blood, 80 
Nor shall they now be tainted with a king's. 

K. Edw. Forgive my thought for having such a 
thought. 
One jewel have I left ; receive thou this : [Giving jewel. 
Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause, 
But every joint shakes as I give it thee. 85 

O, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, 
Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul ! 
Know, that I am a king : O, at that name 
I feel a hell of grief ! where is my crown ? 
Gone, gone ! and do I remain alive ? 90 

Light. You're overwatch'd, my lord ; lie down and 

rest. 
K. Edw. But that grief keeps me waking, I should 
sleep ; 
For not these ten days have these eye-lids clos'd. 
Now, as I speak, they fall ; and yet with fear 
Open again. O wherefore sitt'st thou here ? 95 

Light. If you mistrust me, I'll be gone, my lord. 

K. Edw. No, no ; for if thou mean'st to murder 
me, 
Thou wilt return again ; and therefore stay. [Sleeps. 



108 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

Light. He sleeps. 

K. Edw. [waking\ O let me not die yet ; stay a 
while. ioo 

Light. How now, my lord ? 

K. Edw. Something still buzzeth in mine ears, 
And tells me, if I sleep I never wake ; 
This fear is that which makes me tremble thus ; 
And therefore tell me, wherefore art thou come ? 105 

Light. To rid thee of thy life. — Matrevis, come. 

Enter Matrevis and Gurney. 

K. Edw. I am too weak and feeble to resist. — 
Assist me, sweet God, and receive my soul ! 

Light. Run for the table. 

K. Edw. O, spare me, or despatch me in a trice. 
[Matrevis brings in a table. King 
Edward is murdered by holding him 
down on the bed with the table, and 
stamping on it. 
Light. So, lay the table down, and stamp on it, 
But not too hard, lest that you bruise his body. 

Mat. I fear me that this cry will raise the town, 
And therefore let us take horse and away. 

Light. Tell me, sirs, was it not bravely done ? 115 

Gur. Excellent well ; take this for thy reward. 

[Stabs Lightborn, who dies. 
Come, let us cast the body in the moat, 
And bear the king's to Mortimer our lord : 
Away ! [Exeunt with the bodies. 



ACT V. SCENE VI. 109 

Scene VI. Westminster, a room in the palace. 
Enter the younger Mortimer and Matrevis. 

Y. Mor. Is't done, Matrevis, and the murderer 
dead ? 

Mat. Ay, my good lord ; I would it were undone ! 

Y. Mor. Matrevis, if thou now grow'st penitent 
I'll be thy ghostly father ; therefore choose, 
Whether thou wilt be secret in this, 5 

Or else die by the hand of Mortimer. 

Mat. Gurney, my lord, is fled, and will, I fear, 
Betray us both ; therefore let me fly. 

Y. Mor. Fly to the savages ! 

Mat. I humbly thank your honour. 

[Exit. 

Y. Mor. As for myself, I stand as Jove's huge 
tree, 10 

And others are but shrubs compar'd to me. 
All tremble at my name, and I fear none ; 
Let's see who dare impeach me for his death I 

Enter Queen Isabella. 

Q. /sad. Ah, Mortimer, the king my son hath news, 
His father's dead, and we have murder'd him. 15 

Y. Mor. What if he have ? the king is yet a child. 

Q. Isab. Ay, but he tears his hair, and wrings his 
hands, 
And vows to be reveng'd upon us both. 
Into the council-chamber he is gone, 



HO EDWARD THE SECOND. 

To crave the aid and succour of his peers. 20 

Ay me, see where he comes, and they with him ! 
Now, Mortimer, begins our tragedy. 

Enter King Edward the Third, Lords, and 
Attendants. 

First Lord. Fear not, my lord ; know that you are 
a king. 

K. Edw. Third. Villain !— 

Y. Mor. Ho, now, my lord ! 

K. Edw. Third. Think not that I am frighted with 
thy words ; 25 

My father's murder'd through thy treachery ; 
And thou shalt die, and on his mournful hearse 
Thy hateful and accursed head shall lie, 
To witness to the world, that by thy means 
His kingly body was too soon interr'd. 30 

Q. Isab. Weep not, sweet son. 

K. Edw. Third. Forbid not me to weep ; he was 
my father ; 
And, had you lov'd him half so well as I, 
You could not bear his death thus patiently. 
But you, I fear, conspir'd with Mortimer. 35 

First Lord. Why speak you not unto my lord the 
king ? 

Y, Mor. Because I think scorn to be accus'd. 
Who is the man dare say I murder'd him ? 

K. Edw. Third. Traitor, in me my loving father 
speaks, 
And plainly saith, 'twas thou that murder'dst him. 40 



ACT V. SCENE VI. «I 

Y. Mor. But hath your grace no other proof than 
this ? 

K. Edw. Third. Yes, if this be the hand of Mor- 
timer. [Shewing letter. 

Y. Mor. False Gurney hath betray'd me and him- 
self. [Aside to Queen Isabella. 

Q. I sab. I fear'd as much ; murder cannot be hid. 

Y. Mor. It is my hand ; what gather you by this ? 

K. Edw. Third. That thither thou didst send a 

murderer. 46 

Y. Mor. What murderer ? bring forth the man I 

sent. 
K. Edw. Third. Ah, Mortimer, thou knovv'st that 
he is slain ; 
And so shalt thou be too. — Why stays he here ? 
Bring him unto a hurdle, drag him forth ; 50 

Hang him, I say, and set his quarters up : 
But bring his head back presently to me. 

Q. Isab. For my sake, sweet son, pity Mortimer ! 

Y. Mor. Madam, entreat not, I will rather die, 
Than sue for life unto a paltry boy. 55 

K. Edw. Third. Hence with the traitor, with the 
murderer ! 

Y. Mor. Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel 
There is a point, to which when men aspire 
They tumble headlong down : that point I touch'd, 
And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher, 
Why should I grieve at my declining fall ? — 61 

Farewell, fair queen ; weep not for Mortimer, 



112 EDWARD THE SECOND. 

That scorns the world, and, as a traveller, 
Goes to discover countries yet unknown. 

K. Edw. Third. What, suffer you the traitor to 
delay ? 65 

[Exit the younger Mortimer with First 
Lord and some of the Attendants. 
Q. Tsab. As thou receivedest thy life from me, 
Spill not the blood of gentle Mortimer. 

K. Edw. Third. This argues that you spilt my 
father's blood, 
Else would you not entreat for Mortimer. 

Q. Isao. I spill his blood ? no. 70 

K. Edw. Third. Ay, madam, you ; for so the 

rumour runs. 
Q. /sab. That rumour is untrue ; for loving thee 
Is this report rais'd on poor Isabel. 

K. Edw. Third. I do not think her so unnatural. 
Sec. Lord. My lord, I fear me it will prove too 
true. 75 

K. Edw. Third. Mother, you are suspected for his 
death, 
And therefore we commit you to the Tower, 
Till farther trial may be made thereof. 
If you be guilty, though I be your son, 
Think not to find me slack or pitiful. 80 

Q. /sab. Nay, to my death; for too long have I liv'd, 
Whenas my son thinks to abridge my days. 

K. Edw. Third. Away with her ! her words enforce 
these tears, 
And I shall pity her, if she speak again. 



ACT V. SCENE VI. 1 13 

Q. Isab. Shall I not mourn for my beloved lord ? 
And with the rest accompany him to his grave ? 86 

Sec. Lord. Thus, madam, 'tis the king's will you 
shall hence. 

Q. Isab. He hath forgotten me ; stay, I am his 
mother. 

Sec. Lord. That boots not ; therefore, gentle 
madam, go. 

Q. Isab. Then come, sweet death, and rid me of 
this grief ! 90 

[Exit with Second Lord and some of the 
Attendants. 

Re~e?iter First Lord, with the head of the younger 
Mortimer. 

First Lord. My lord, here is the head of Mortimer. 

K. Edw. Third. Go fetch my father's hearse, where 
it shall lie ; 
And bring my funeral robes. [Exeunt Attendants. 

Accursed head, 
Could I have rul'd thee then as I do now, 
Thou hadst not hatch'd this monstrous treachery ! — 
Here comes the hearse : help me to mourn, my lords. 

Re-enter Attendants, with the hearse and funeral robes. 

Sweet father, here unto thy murder'd ghost 

I offer up this wicked traitor's head ; 

And let these tears, distilling from mine eyes, 

Be witness of my grief and innocency. [Exeunt. 



SELECTIONS FROM 
TAMBURLAINE AND THE POEMS. 



FROM "TAMBURLAINE THE 
GREAT." 



[Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd, having become the head of 
a powerful force, has set out to conquer the world. He has just 
captured Zenocrate, daughter of the Soldan of Egypt, and is 
wooing her.] 

(Part I. Act I. Sc. 2.) 

Zenocrate, lovelier than the love of Jove, 
Brighter than is the silver Rhodope, 
Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hills, — 
Thy person is more worth to Tamburlaine, 
Than the possession of the Persian crown, 5 

Which gracious stars have promised at my birth. 
A hundred Tartars shall attend on thee, 
Mounted on steeds swifter than Pegasus ; 
Thy garments shall be made of Median silk, 
Enchased with precious jewels of mine own, 10 

More rich and valurous than Zenocrate's. 
With milk-white harts upon an ivory sled 
Thou shalt be drawn amidst the frozen pools, 
And scale the icy mountains' lofty tops, 
Which with thy beauty will be soon resolved. 15 

My martial prizes with five hundred men, 
Won on the fifty-headed Volga's waves, 
Shall we all offer to Zenocrate, — 
And then myself to fair Zenocrate. 
117 



Ii8 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

Techelles. What now ! — in love ? 20 

Tamburlaine. Techelles, women must be flattered : 
But this is she with whom I am in love. 

[Tamburlaine addresses Theridamas, who commands the Persian 
force sent against the " Tartarian rout."] 

Forsake thy king, and do but join with me, 

And we will triumph over all the world ; 

I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains, 25 

And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about : 

And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere, 

Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. 

Draw forth thy sword, thou mighty man-at-arms, 

Intending but to raze my charmed skin, 30 

And Jove himself will stretch his hand from Heaven 

To ward the blow and shield me safe from harm. 

See how he rains down heaps of gold in showers, 

As if he meant to give my soldiers pay ! 

And as a sure and grounded argument, 35 

That I shall be the monarch of the East, 

He sends his Soldan's daughter rich and brave, 

To be my Queen and portly Emperess. 

If thou wilt stay with me, renowned man, 

And lead thy thousand horse with my conduct, 40 

Besides thy share of this Egyptian prize, 

Those thousand horse shall sweat with martial spoil 

Of conquered kingdoms and of cities sacked ; 

Both we will walk upon the lofty cliffs, 

And Christian merchants that with Russian stems 45 

Plough up huge furrows in the Caspian sea, 

Shall vail to us, as lords of all the lake. 

Both we will reign as consuls of the earth, 



PART I. ACT II. SCENE I. 119 

And mighty kings shall be our senators. 

Jove sometime masked in a shepherd's weed, 50 

And by those steps that he hath scaled the Heavens 

May we become immortal like the gods. 

Join with me now in this my mean estate, 

(I call it mean because, being yet obscure, 

The nations far removed admire me not,) 55 

And when my name and honour shall be spread 

As far as Boreas claps his brazen wings, 

Or fair Bootes sends his cheerful light, 

Then shalt thou be competitor with me, 

And sit with Tamburlaine in all his majesty. 60 

[Cosroe is on his way to seek the aid of Tamburlaine, in his 
rebellion against his brother Mycetes, the witless King of Persia] 

(Part I. Act II. Sc. i.) 

Cosroe. Thus far are we towards Theridamas, 
And valiant Tamburlaine, the man of fame, 
The man that in the forehead of his fortune 
Bears figures of renown and miracle. 
But tell me, that hast seen him, Menaphon, 5 

What stature wields he, and what personage ? 

Menaphon. Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned, 
Like his desire lift upward and divine ; 
So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit, 
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear 10 
Old Atlas' burthen ; — 'twixt his manly pitch, 
A pearl, more worth than all the world, is placed, 
Wherein by curious sovereignty of art 
Are fixed his piercing instruments of sight, 
Whose fiery circles bear encompassed 15 



120 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

A heaven of heavenly bodies in their spheres, 

That guides his steps and actions to the throne 

Where honour sits invested royally : 

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion, 

Thirsting with sovereignty and love of arms ; 20 

His lofty brows in folds do figure death, 

And in their smoothness amity and life ; 

About them hangs a knot of amber hair, 

Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was, 

On which the breath of Heaven delights to play, 25 

Making it dance with wanton majesty. — 

His arms and fingers, long, and sinewy, 

Betokening valour and excess of strength ; — 

In every part proportioned like the man 

Should make the world subdued to Tamburlaine. 30 

[Tamburlaine has just heard Cosroe assured that through the 
defeat of Mycetes he now shall have his wish — and ride in triumph 
through Persepolis.] 

(.Part I. Act II. Sc. 5.) 

Tamburlaine. " And ride in triumph through Per- 
sepolis " ! 
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles? 
Usumcasane and Theridamas, 
Is it not passing brave to be a king, 
" And ride in triumph through Persepolis " ? 35 

Techelles. O, my lord, 'tis sweet and full of pomp. 

Usu?ncasane. To be a king is half to be a god. 

Theridamas. A god is not so glorious as a king. 
I think the pleasure they enjoy in Heaven, 
Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth. — 40 



PART I. ACT II. SCENE V. 121 

To wear a crown enchased with pearl and gold, 
Whose virtues carry with it life and death ; 
To ask and have, command and be obeyed ; 
When looks breed love, with looks to gain the prize, 
Such power attractive shines in princes' eyes ! 45 

Tamburlaine. Why say, Theridamas, wilt thou be 

a king ? 
Theridamas. Nay, though I praise it, I can live 

without it. 
Tamburlaine. What say my other friends ? Will you 

be kings ? 
Techelles. I, if I could, with all my heart, my lord, 
Tamburlaine. Why, that's well said, Techelles ; so 
would I, 50 

And so would you, my masters, would you not ? 
Usumcasane. What then, my lord ? 
Tamburlaine. Why then, Casane, shall we wish for 
aught 
The world affords in greatest novelty, 
And rests attemptless, faint and destitute ? 55 

Methinks we should not : I am strongly moved, 
That if I should desire the Persian crown, 
I could attain it with a wondrous ease. 
And would not all our soldiers soon consent, 
If we should aim at such a dignity ? 60 

Theridamas. I know they would with our persua- 
sions. 

Tamburlaine. Why then, Theridamas, I'll first assay 
To get the Persian kingdom to myself ; 
Then thou for Parthia ; they for Scythia and Media ; 



122 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

And, if I prosper, all shall be as sure 65 

As if the Turk, the Pope, Afric and Greece, 
Came creeping to us with their crowns apace. 

[Tamburlaine has won his victory over Cosroe.] 

{Part I. Act II. Sc. 7-) 

Tamburlaine. The thirst of reign and sweetness of a 
crown, 
That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops 
To thrust his doting father from his chair, 70 

And place himself in the empyreal Heaven, 
Moved me to manage arms against thy state. 
What better precedent than mighty Jove? 
Nature that framed us of four elements, 
Warring within our breasts for regiment, 75 

Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds : 
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend 
The wondrous architecture of the world, 
And measure every wandering planet's course, 
Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 80 

And always moving as the restless spheres, 
Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, 
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, 
That perfect bliss and sole felicity, 
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. 85 

[Agydas, a Median lord in whose care Zenocrate had been before 
her capture, is urging her to be loyal to the Prince of Arabia, 
not perceiving that Tamburlaine is within hearing.] 

(Parti. Act III. Sc. 2.) 

Agydas. How can you fancy one that looks so 
fierce, 



PART I. ACT III. SCENE II. 1 23 

Only disposed to martial stratagems ? 

Who, when he shall embrace you in his arms, 

Will tell how many thousand men he slew ; 

And when you look for amorous discourse, 5 

Will rattle forth his facts of war and blood, 

Too harsh a subject for your dainty ears. 

Zenocrate. As looks the Sun through Nilus' flowing 
stream, 
Or when the Morning holds him in her arms, 
So looks my lordly love, fair Tamburlaine ; 10 

His talk more sweeter than the Muses' song 
They sung for honour 'gainst Pierides ; 
Or when Minerva did with Neptune strive : 
And higher would I rear my estimate 
Than Juno, sister to the highest god, 15 

If I were matched with mighty Tamburlaine. 

Agydas. Yet be not so inconstant in your love ; 
But let the young Arabian live in hope 
After your rescue to enjoy his choice. 
You see though first the King of Persia, 20 

Being a shepherd, seemed to love you much, 
Now in his majesty he leaves those looks, 
Those words of favour, and those comfortings, 
And gives no more than common courtesies. 

Zenocrate. Thence rise the tears that so distain my 
cheeks, 25 

Fearing his love through my unworthiness. — 

[Tamburlaine goes to her and takes her away lovingly by the 
hand, looking wrathfully on Agydas. Exeunt all but Agydas.] 

Agydas. Betrayed by fortune and suspicious love, 
Threatened with frowning wrath and jealousy, 



124 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

Surprised with fear of hideous revenge, 

I stand aghast ; but most astonied 30 

To see his choler shut in secret thoughts, 

And wrapt in silence of his angry soul. 

Upon his brows was pourtrayed ugly death ; 

And in his eyes the furies of his heart 

That shone as comets, menacing revenge, 35 

And cast a pale complexion on his cheeks. 

As when the seaman sees the Hyades 

Gather an army of Cimmerian clouds, 

(Auster and Aquilon with winged steeds, 

All sweating, tilt about the watery Heavens, 40 

With shivering spears enforcing thunder claps, 

And from their shields strike flames of lightning,) 

All-fearful folds his sails and sounds the main, 

Lifting his prayers to the Heavens for aid 

Against the terror of the winds and waves, 45 

So fares Agydas for the late-felt frowns, 

That sent a tempest to my daunted thoughts, 

And make my soul divine her overthrow. 

[A messenger explains to the Soldan of Egypt the practice of 
Tamburlaine toward his enemies.] 

(Part I. Act IV. Sc. i.) 

Pleaseth your mightiness to understand, 

His resolution far exeedeth all. 

The first day when he pitcheth down his tents, 

White is their hue, and on his silver crest 

A snowy feather spangled white he bears, 5 

To signify the mildness of his mind, 

That, satiate with spoil, refuseth blood. 

But when Aurora mounts the second time 



PART I. ACT. V. SCENE I. 1 25 

As red as scarlet is his furniture ; 

Then must his kindled wrath be quenched with blood, 

Not sparing any that can manage. arms ; 11 

But if these threats move not submission, 

Black are his colours, black pavilion ; 

His spear, his shield, his horse, his armour, plumes, 

And jetty feathers, menace death and hell ! 15 

Without respect of sex, degree, or age, 

He razeth all his foes with fire and sword. 

[Immediately after an unusually merciless exhibition of the con- 
queror's stern character, in the murder of suppliant virgins who 
had come to plead for Damascus (the city having refused to sur- 
render until the third day), Tamburlaine speaks this soliloquy.] 

(Part I. Act V. Sc. 1.) 

Ah, fair Zenocrate ! — divine Zenocrate ! — 

Fair is too foul an epithet for thee, 

That in thy passion for thy country's love, 

And fear to see thy kingly father's harm, 

With hair dishevelled wip'st thy watery cheeks, 5 

And, like to Flora in her morning pride 

Shaking her silver tresses in the air, 

Rain'st on the earth resolved pearl in showers, 

And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face, 

Where Beauty, mother to the Muses, sits 10 

And comments volumes with her ivory pen, 

Taking instructions from thy flowing eyes ; 

Eyes that, when Ebena steps to Heaven, 

In silence of thy solemn evening's walk, 

Make, in the mantle of the richest night, 15 

The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light ; 

There angels in their crystal armours fight 



126 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts 

For Egypt's freedom, and the Soldan's life ; 

His life that so consumes Zenocrate, 20 

Whose sorrows lay more siege unto my soul, 

Than all my army to Damascus' walls : 

And neither Persia's sovereign, nor the Turk 

Troubled my senses with conceit of foil 

So much by much as doth Zenocrate. 25 

What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then ? 

If all the pens that ever poets held 

Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, 

And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, 

Their minds, and muses on admired themes ; 30 

If all the heavenly quintessence they still 

From their immortal flowers of poesy, 

Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive 

The highest reaches of a human wit ; 

If these had made one poem's period, 35 

And all combined in beauty's worthiness, 

Yet should there hover in their restless heads 

One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, 

Which into words no virtue can digest. 

But how unseemly is it for my sex, 40 

My discipline of arms and chivalry, 

My nature, and the terror of my name, 

To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint ! 

Save only that in beauty's just applause, 

With whose instinct the soul of man is touched, — 45 

And every warrior that is rapt with love 

Of fame, of valour, and of victory, 

Must needs have beauty beat on his conceits, — 

I thus conceiving and subduing both 



PART II. ACT II. SCENE IV. 127 

That which hath stooped the chiefest of the gods, 50 

Even from the fiery-spangled veil of Heaven, 

To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds' flames, 

And mask in cottages of strowed reeds, 

Shall give the world to note, for all my birth, 

That virtue solely is the sum of glory, 55 

And fashions men with trwe nobility. 

[Zenocrate is dying, with Tamburlaine sitting by her. About her 
bed are three Physicians tempering potions. Around are Ther- 
imadas, Techelles, Usumcasane, and her three Sons]. 

{Part II. Act II. SC.4O 

Tamb. Black is the beauty of the brightest day ; 
The golden ball of Heaven's eternal fire, 
That danced with glory on the silver waves, 
Now wants the fuel that inflamed his beams ; 
And all with faintness, and for foul disgrace, 5 

He binds his temples with a frowning cloud, 
Ready to darken earth with endless night. 
Zenocrate, that gave him light and life, 
Whose eyes shot fire from their ivory bowers 
And tempered every soul with lively heat, 10 

Now by the malice of the angry skies, 
Whose jealousy admits no second mate, 
Draws in the comfort of her latest breath, 
All dazzled with the hellish mists of death. 
Now walk the angels on the walls of Heaven, 15 

As sentinels to warn the immortal souls 
To entertain divine Zenocrate. 
Apollo, Cynthia, and the ceaseless lamps 
That gently looked upon this loathsome earth, 
Shine downward now no more, but deck the Heavens, 



128 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

To entertain divine Zenocrate. 21 

The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates 

Refined eyes with an eternal sight, 

Like tried silver, run through Paradise, 

To entertain divine Zenocrate. 25 

The cherubins and holy seraphins, 

That sing and play before the King of kings, 

Use all their voices and their instruments 

To entertain divine Zenocrate. 

And in this sweet and curious harmony, 30 

The God that tunes this music to our souls, 

Holds out his hand in highest majesty 

To entertain divine Zenocrate. 

Then let some holy trance convey my thoughts 

Up to the palace of th' empyreal Heaven, 35 

That this my life may be as short to me 

As are the days of sweet Zenocrate. 

Physicians, will no physic do her good ? 

Phys. My lord, your majesty shall soon perceive : 
And if she pass this fit, the worst is past. 40 

Tamb. Tell me, how fares my fair Zenocrate ? 

Zeno. I fare, my lord, as other empresses, 
That, when this frail and transitory flesh 
Hath sucked the measure of that vital air 
That feeds the body with his dated health, 45 

Wade with enforced and necessary change. 

Tamb. May never such a change transform my love, 
In whose sweet being I repose my life, 
Whose heavenly presence, beautified with health, 
Gives light to Phoebus and the fixed stars ! 50 

Whose absence makes the sun and moon as dark 



PART II. ACT II. SCENE IV. 129 

As when, opposed in one diameter, 

Their spheres are mounted on the serpent's head, 

Or else descended to his winding train. 

Live still, my love, and so conserve my life, 55 

Or, dying, be the author of my death ! 

Zeno. Live still, my lord ! O, let my sovereign live ! 
And sooner let the fiery element 
Dissolve and make your kingdom in the sky, 
Than this base earth should shroud your majesty : 60 
For should I but suspect your death by mine, 
The comfort of my future happiness, 
And hope to meet your highness in the Heavens, 
Turned to despair, would break my wretched breast, 
And fury would confound my present rest. 65 

But let me die, my love ; yet let me die ; 
With love and patience let your true love die ! 
Your grief and fury hurts my second life. — 
Yet let me kiss my lord before I die, 
And let me die with kissing of my lord. 7° 

But since my life is lengthened yet a while, 
Let me take leave of these my loving sons, 
And of my lords, whose true nobility 
Have merited my latest memory. 

Sweet sons, farewell ! In death resemble me, 75 

And in your lives your father's excellence. 
Some music, and my fit will cease, my lord. 

\They call for music. 

Tamb. Proud fury, and intolerable fit, 
That dares torment the body of my love, 
And scourge the scourge of the immortal God : 80 
Now are those spheres, where Cupid used to sit, 
Wounding the world with wonder and with love, 



13° SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

Sadly supplied with pale and ghastly death, 
Whose darts do pierce the centre of my soul. 
Her sacred beauty hath enchanted Heaven ; 85 

And had she lived before the siege of Troy, 
Helen (whose beauty summoned Greece to arms, 
And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos) 
Had not been named in Homer's Iliads ; 
Her name had been in every line he wrote. 90 

Or had those wanton poets, for whose birth 
Old Rome was proud, but gazed a while on her, 
Nor Lesbia nor Corinna had been named ; 
Zenocrate had been the argument 
Of every epigram or elegy. 95 

[T/ie music sounds. — Zenocrate dies. 
What ! is she dead ? Techelles, draw thy sword 
And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain, 
And we descend into the infernal vaults, 
To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair, 
And throw them in the triple moat of hell, 100 

For taking hence my fair Zenocrate. 
Casane and Theridamas, to arms ! 
Raise cavalieros higher than the clouds, 
And with the cannon break the frame of Heaven ; 
Batter the shining palace of the sun, 105 

And shiver all the starry firmament, 
For amorous Jove hath snatched my love from hence. 
Meaning to make her stately queen of Heaven. 
What God soever holds thee in his arms, 
Giving thee nectar and ambrosia, no 

Behold me here, divine Zenocrate, 
Raving, impatient, desperate, and mad, 
Breaking my steeled lance, with which I burst 



PART II ACT II. SCENE IV. 131 

The rusty beams of Janus' temple-doors, 
Letting out Death and tyrannising War, 115 

To march with me under this bloody flag ! 
And if thou pitiest Tamburlaine the Great, 
Come down from Heaven, and live with me again ! 
Ther. Ah, good my lord, be patient ; she is dead, 
And all this raging cannot make her live. 120 

If words might serve, our voice hath rent the air ; 
If tears, our eyes have watered all the earth ; 
If grief, our murdered hearts have strained forth 

blood ; 
Nothing prevails, for she is dead, my lord. 

Tamb. For she is dead ! Thy words do pierce my 

soul! 125 

Ah, sweet Theridamas ! say so no more ; 
Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives, 
And feed my mind that dies for want of her. 
Where'er her soul be, thou \_To the body] shalt stay 

with me, 
Embalmed with cassia, ambergris, and myrrh, 130 

Not lapt in lead, but in a sheet of gold, 
And till 1 die thou shalt not be interred. 
Then in as rich a tomb as Mausolus' 
We both will rest and have one epitaph 
Writ in as many several languages 135 

As I have conquered kingdoms with my sword. 
This cursed town will I consume with fire, 
Because this place bereft me of my love : 
The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourned ; 
And here will I set up her statua, 140 

And march about it with my mourning camp 
Drooping and pining for Zenocrate. 



I3 2 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

[Theridamas addresses Olympia, who, after stabbing her son, to 
save him from captivity, has attempted to kill herself.] 

{Part II. Act III. Sc. 4.) 

But, lady, go with us to Tamburlaine, 

And thou shalt see a man greater than Mahomet, 

In whose. high looks is much more majesty 

Than from the concave superficies 

Of Jove's vast palace, the empyreal orb, 5 

Unto the shining bower where Cynthia sits, 

Like lovely Thetis, in a crystal robe ; 

That treadeth Fortune underneath his feet, 

And makes the mighty god of arms his slave ; 

On whom Death and the Fatal Sisters wait 10 

With naked swords and scarlet liveries : 

Before whom, mounted on a lion's back, 

Rhamnusia bears a helmet full of blood, 

And strews the way with brains of slaughtered men ; 

By whose proud side the ugly Furies run, 15 

Hearkening when he shall bid them plague the world ; 

Over whose zenith, clothed in windy air, 

And eagle's wings joined to her feathered breast, 

Fame hovereth, sounding of her golden trump, 

That to the adverse poles of that straight line, 20 

Which measureth the glorious frame of Heaven, 

The name of mighty Tamburlaine is spread, 

And him, fair lady, shall thy eyes behold. 

[Theridamas is mourning for Olympia, whom he loved.] 
{Part II. Act IV. Sc. 2.) 

Now hell is fairer than Elysium ; 

A greater lamp than that bright eye of Heaven, 



PART II. ACT IV. SCENE III. 133 

From whence the stars do borrow all their light, 

Wanders about the black circumference ; 

And now the damned souls are free from pain, 5 

For every Fury gazeth on her looks ; 

Infernal Dis is courting of my love, 

Inventing masks and stately shows for her, 

Opening the doors of his rich treasury 

To entertain this queen of chastity ; 10 

Whose body shall be tombed with all the pomp 

The treasure of my kingdom may afford. 

[Tamburlaine enters, drawn in his chariot by the Kings of 
Trebizond and Soria, with bits in their mouths : in his right hand 
he has a whip with which he scourgeth them, while his left 
hand holds the reins ; then come Techelles, Theridamas, Usum- 
casane, Amyras, and Celebinus with the Kings of Natolia and 
Jerusalem, led by five or six common Soldiers. 

{Part II. Act IV. Sc. 3.) 

Tamb. Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia ! 
What ! can ye draw but twenty miles a day, 
And have so proud a chariot at your heels, 15 

And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine, 
But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you, 
To Byron here, where thus I honour you ! 
The horse that guide the golden eye of Heaven, 
And blow the morning from their nosterils, 20 

Making their fiery gait above the clouds, 
Are not so honoured in their governor, 
As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine. 
The headstrong jades of Thrace Alcides tamed, 
That King Egeus fed with human flesh, 25 

And made so wanton that they knew their strengths, 



134 SELECTIONS FROM TAMBURLAINE. 

Were not subdued with valour more divine 

Than you by this unconquered arm of mine. 

To make you fierce, and fit my appetite, 

You shall be fed with flesh as raw as blood, 30 

And drink in pails the strongest muscadel ; 

If you can live with it, then live, and draw 

My chariot swifter than the racking clouds ; 

If not, then die like beasts, and fit for naught 

But perches for the black and fatal ravens. 35 

Thus am I right the scourge of highest Jove ; 

And see the figure of my dignity, 

By which I hold my name and majesty ! 

Amyras. Let me have coach, my lord, that I may 
ride, 
And thus be drawn by these two idle kings. 40 

Tamb. Thy youth forbids such ease, my kingly 

boy; 
They shall to-morrow draw my chariot, 
While these their fellow-kings may be refreshed. 
King of Natolia. O thou that sway'st the region 

under earth, 
And art a king as absolute as Jove, 45 

Come as thou didst in fruitful Sicily, 
Surveying all the glories of the land, 
And as thou took'st the fair Proserpina, 
Joying the fruit of Ceres' garden-plot, 
For love, for honour, and to make her queen, 50 

So for just hate, for shame, and to subdue 
This proud contemner of thy dreadful power, 
Come once in fury and survey his pride, 
Haling him headlong to the lowest hell. 



PART II. ACT V. SCENE III. 135 

[Tamburlaine, stricken by disease, is drawn in upon his chariot 
by the captive kings, and feels the approach of death.] 

{Part II. Act V. Sc. 3.) 

Tamb. What daring god torments my body thus, 
And seeks to conquer mighty Tamburlaine ? 
Shall sickness prove me now to be a man, 
That have been termed the terror of the world ? 
Techelles and the rest, come, take your swords, 5 

And threaten him whose hand afflicts my soul. 
Come, let us march against the powers of Heaven, 
And set black streamers in the firmament, 
To signify the slaughter of the gods. 



THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS 
LOVE. 

Come live with me, and be my love ; 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That hills and valleys, dales and fields, 
Woods or steepy mountain yields. 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 5 

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks 
By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses, 

And a thousand fragrant posies : 10 

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. 

A gown made of the finest wool 

Which from our pretty lambs we pull, 

Fair-lined slippers for the cold, 15 

With buckles of the purest gold ; 

A belt of straw and ivy-buds, 

With coral clasps and amber studs ; 

And if these pleasures may thee move, 

Come live with me, and be my love. 20 

The shepherd- swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning : 
If these delights thy mind may move, 
Then live with me, and be my love. 

136 



HERO AND LEANDER. 1 37 

From the first Sesiiad of 
HERO AND LEANDER. 

On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood, 

In view and opposite two cities stood, 

Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might ; 

The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight. 

At Sestos Hero dwelt ; Hero the fair, 5 

Whom young Apollo courted for her hair, 

And offer'd as a dower his burning throne, 

Where she should sit, for men to gaze upon. 

The outside of her garments were of lawn, 

The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn ; 10 

Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, 

Where Venus in her naked glory strove 

To please the careless and disdainful eyes 

Of proud Adonis, that before her lies ; 

Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, 15 

Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain. 

Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath, 

From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath ; 

Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, 

Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives. 20 

Amorous Leander, beautiful and young, 

(Whose tragedy divine Musaesus sung,) 

Dwelt at Abydos ; since him dwelt there none 

For whom succeeding times make greater moan. 

His dangling tresses, that were never shorn, 25 

Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne, 



I3 8 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Would have allur'd the venturous youth of Greece 

To hazard more than for the golden fleece. 

Fair Cynthia wished his arms might be her sphere ; 

Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there. 30 

His body was as straight as Circe's wand ; 

Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand. 

Even as delicious meat is to the tast, 

So was his neck in touching, and surpast 

The white of Pelops' shoulder : I could tell ye, 35 

How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly; 

And whose immortal fingers did imprint 

That heavenly path with many a curious dint 

That runs along his back ; but my rude pen 

Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, 40 

Much less of powerful gods : let it suffice 

That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes ; 

Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his 

That leapt into the water for a kiss 

Of his own shadow, and despising many, 45 

Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. 

Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen, 

Enamour'd of his beauty had he been : 

His presence made the rudest peasant melt, 

That in the vast uplandish country dwelt ; 50 

The barbarous Thracian soldier, mov'd with nought, 

Was mov'd with him, and for his favor sought, 

The men of wealthy Sestos every year, 

For his sake whom their goddess held so dear, 

Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast : 55 

Thither resorted many a wandering guest 

To meet their loves : such as had none at all, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 139 

Came lovers home from this great festival. 

On this feast-day — O cursed day and hour ! 

Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower 60 

To Venus' temple, where unhappily, 

As after chanc'd, they did each other spy. 

So fair a church as this had Venus none : 

The walls were of discolour'd jasper-stone, 

Wherein was Proteus carv'd ; and over-head 65 

A lively vine of green sea-agate spread, 

Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung, 

And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung. 

Of crystal shining fair the pavement was ; 

The town of Sestos call'd it Venus' glass : 70 

And in the midst a silver altar stood : 

There Hero, sacrificing turtles' blood, 

Vail'd to the ground, veiling her eyelids close ; 

And modestly they opened as she rose : 

Thence flew Love's arrow with the golden head ; 75 

And thus Leander was enamoured. 

Stone-still he stood, and evermore he gaz'd, 

Till with the fire, that from his countenance blaz'd, 

Relenting Hero's gentle heart was strook : 

Such force and virtue hath an amorous look. 80 

It lies not in our power to love or hate, 
For will in us is over-rul'd by fate. 
When two are stript, long ere the course begin, 
We wish that one should lose, the other win ; 
And one especially do we affect 85 

Of two gold ingots, like in each respect : 



HO HERO AND LEANDER. 

The reason no man knows ; let it suffice, 

What we behold is censur'd by our eyes. 

Where both deliberate, the love is slight ; 

Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight ? 90 

He kneel'd ; but unto her devoutly pray'd : 
Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said, 
" Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him " ; 
And, as she spake those words, came somewhat near 

him. 
He started up ; she blush'd as one asham'd ; 95 

Wherewith Leander much more was inflam'd. 
He touch'd her hand ; in touching it she trembled : 
Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled. 
These lovers parled by the touch of hands : 
True love is mute, and oft amazed stands. 100 

Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts en- 
tangled, 
The air with sparks of living fire was spangled ; 
And night, deep-drench'd in misty Acheron, 
Heaved up her head, and half the world upon 
Breath'd darkness forth. 105 

(Hero speaks) : 
"Upon a rock, and underneath a hill, 
Far from the town, (where all is whist and still, 
Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand, 
Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land, 
Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus no 

In silence of the night to visit us,) 
My turret stands ; and there God knows, I play 
With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day. 
A dwarfish beldam bears me company, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 141 

That hops about the chamber where I lie, 1 15 

And spends the night, that might be better spent, 
In vain discourse and apish merriment : — 
Come thither." As she spake this, her tongue tripped, 
For unawares, " Come thither," from her slipp'd. 



NOTES. 



The heavy figures refer to the pages of the text ; the lighter figures to 
the lines. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 

I. This play was entered for publication a few weeks after 
Marlowe's death, and was composed perhaps three years earlier. 
In reading it, we feel that Marlowe was schooling himself ; he 
seems to have taken the pledge against his earlier verbal intoxica- 
tions. He carefully works out an excellent plot, with an elabo- 
rate variety of characters, and, as a dramatic whole, the result is 
superior to Faustus or The Jew of Malta. Yet there is a labored 
air to the play, and many passages are crude. The brilliancy of 
his earlier writings is for the most part lost. However, the work 
is of interest and value in itself, and still more as a dramatic land- 
mark : moreover, its elaborate and sustained treatment both by 
guidance and inspiration rendered very important service to the 
drama of the wonderful closing decade of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. The worthiest tribute has been paid it by Shakespeare's 
study — something manifest from the comparison between Mar- 
lowe's play and Richard IT. appended to this note. 

Dramatisations of English history had been known before this 
first successful effort. Marlowe went to the usual sources (which 
continued to be used by his successors), and drew on Holinshed, 
Stow, and Fabyan, for historical facts. Since the course of the 
narrative extends over more than twenty years, he condenses and 
combines important events with considerable skill. 

Students who desire to make the play a means of linguistic and 
historical information, may be referred to an edition by Mr. O. 
W. Tancock, published in the Clarendon Press series. 

143 



144 NOTES. 

Some Resemblances between " Edward II." and "Richard II." 

In each play we have a weak king regardless of his people's 
interests, reckless about the responsibilities of state, alienated 
from his nobles through the fascinations of upstart favourites ; at 
first securely arrogant, then forced to the defensive, finally de- 
throned. This resemblance lay in the bare history, and Shake- 
speare's selection of Richard II. 's reign as a dramatic theme need 
not be called an imitation ; for this first play of his so-called 
chronicle trilogy contains passages that indicate an intention to fol- 
low it with the histories of Henry IV. and Henry V. In general 
treatment, however, there was an opportunity for the earliest work 
to exert an influence, while familiarity with it would be likely to 
show itself by incidental touches in figures or phrases. Several 
suggestive parallels, both in construction and in details, justify us 
in concluding that Hero and Leander was not the only work of 
Marlowe which Shakespeare admired. 

We may pass by the indebtedness in the matter of versification, 
only noting that in Richard II. the witchery of Marlowe's rhym- 
ing couplet is quite as traceable as his " mighty line." For Shake- 
speare at thirty had not acquired that firmness in discarding the 
couplet in passages of more lyrical mood that Marlowe had shown 
years before. Nor is it necessary to do more than suggest the 
analogy in the main disposition of the "dramatis personae." 
Though the enunciation of the characters of the two kings is dis- 
similar, their faults of conduct are almost identical. Mortimer 
and Bolingbroke are indeed unlike, yet they play correspondent 
roles as leaders of the insurrection, and as the dethroned kings' 
successors. Kent and York, again, have a function akin to that 
of the classical chorus, in judiciously yet sympathetically following 
the course of events, changing their sides as the merits of the 
situation change. 

In the earlier play the king's favourites are foreground figures ; 
in the latter they are kept in the background : yet Gaveston, the 
Spensers, and Baldock find parallels essential to Shakespeare's plot 
in Bushy, Bagot, and Green. Then again, Lancaster, Pembroke, 
the elder Mortimer, Warwick, and the other barons who revolt 



EDWARD THE SECOND. T 45 

from Edward, are matched by Northumberland, Percy, Ross, 
Willoughby, and the other barons who combine against Richard. 
Once more, a fictitious Isabella appears in Shakespeare (for the 
historical queen of Richard was a child), though unlike in char- 
acter as well as in their relations to their husbands, none the less 
the two queens are parallels in the dramatic economy. 

But more suggestive resemblances are to be traced in individual 
passages. 

When the Bishop of Coventry is arrested, Edward says, " Con- 
vey this priest to the Tower," to which the bishop replies, " True, 
true ! " (with, of course, a play on the slang meaning of convey— 
taking something to which the taker had no right). 

So Bolingbroke says of Richard, 

" Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower, 

to which Richard responds, 

" Oh, good : convey! " 
Edward's favourite Gaveston is compared by Mortimer to a 
canker worm creeping up into the highest bough of the "lofty 
cedar tree " of the English state : in Richard II. the king's 
favourites are twice spoken of under the same figure, "the cater- 
pillars of the commonwealth." 

• It is Gaveston to whom is attributed that alienation of Edward 
from his queen that forms so prominent a part in the action of the 
earlier drama ; when Bolingbroke condemns Bushy and Green 
to death, he states the following reason for his severity : 
" You have in manner with your sinful hours 
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him ; 
Broke the possession of a royal bed, 
And stained the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks 
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs." 

The words " in manner" must refer to the unwilling separation 
between Richard and Isabel, which is one of the consequences of 
his misconduct ; since there is no allusion in the play to any dis- 
sension between the two ; indeed, their love is an attractive ele- 
ment in Richard's story. But Shakespeare's introduction of a pas- 
sage so entirely uncalled for— the thought is touched upon in 
these lines only— indicates that he recollected Edward II. 



I4 6 NOTES. 

There is a similarity, too, between the ends of the favourites in 
both plays: on each side, they redeem their faults by plucky deaths. 

Again Edward, after his fall, is addressed by the Bishop of 
Winchester as " My lord," and replies : 

" Call me not lord ; away, out of my sight ! " 

Northumberland begins to speak to Richard, in the same situa- 
tion, with " My lord," and is in like manner interrupted by ; 

" No lord of thine, thou haught-insulting man, 
Nor no man's lord : I have no name, no title." 

Both kings, each in prison, waiting for death, express regret 
for their mistaken courses. Edward, with that love for the prince 
which forms a tender trait of his character, sends him a message 
to " rule better than I ; " Richard moralizes on his sensitiveness to 
discordant music, while he had not had 

" An ear to hear my true time broke ; 

I wasted time and now doth time waste me." 

Both struggle in highly wrought emotion over the formal sur- 
render of the crown after its significance of power has been lost ; 
in a paroxysm, one destroys his papers, the other his mirror. 

When Edward is placed in his first imprisonment, the merciful 
Leicester tries to encourage him : 

" Be patient, good my lord, cease to lament; 
Imagine Killingworth Castle were your court, 
And that you lay for pleasure here a space, 
Not of compulsion or necessity." 

Shakespeare's fine development of the suggestion, in Gaunt's 
parting words to Bolingbroke, is one of the most familiar pass- 
ages in his early drama : 

" All places that the eye of heaven visits 
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. 
Teach thy necessity to reason thus ; 
There is no virtue like necessity. 
Think not the king did banish thee, 
But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit, 
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne. 
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour, 
And not the king exiled thee ; or suppose 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 1 47 

Devouring pestilence hangs in our air, 

And thou art flying to a fresher clime. 

Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it 

To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou comest : 

Suppose the singing birds musicians, 

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence streiv'd, 

The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more 

Than a delightful measure or a dance : 

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite 

The man that mocks at it and sets it light." 

Edward in his flight seeks concealment in a monastery, and 
thinks it would be a privilege in the silence and peace of that 
retreat to pass the rest of his days : 

" Father, this life contemplative is Heaven, 
O, that I might this life in quiet lead ! " 

So, when, confronted with the rebel army, Richard is plunging 
into despair, he fancies he will become a religious recluse : 

" I'll give my jewels for a set of beads. 
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage." 

Edward, whose royalty of nature appears best after exterior 
royalty is lost, compares himself in a kingly simile with the lion ; 
like the deer's, the wounds of private men, he argues, may find 
commonplace remedies : 

" But when the imperial lion's flesh is gored, 
He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw, 
And highly scorning that the lowly earth 
Should drink his blood, mounts up to the air. 
And so it fares with me." 

In the same situation in Shakespeare's play the queen tries to 
rouse the nerveless Richard to a more royal bearing : 
" The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw. 
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage 
To be o'erpower'd : and wilt thou, pupil-like, 
Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod, 
And fawn on rage with base humility, 
Which art a lion and a king of beasts ? " 

Each of the kings, once more in his harsh imprisonment, sighs 
at the change that has come over his former appearance. Nothing 
in Marlowe is more exquisitely imagined than the passage where 



1 48 NOTES. 

Edward, as he is describing to Lightborn the horrors of his 
dungeon, sends a dying message to the woman whom in prosperity 
he had slighted : 

" Tell Isabel, the queen, I look'd not thus, 
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France." 

The same spirit moves Richard to mourn the ravages of afflic- 
tion upon his personal beauty : 

" Was this the face 
That like the sun did make beholders wink ? " 

There are perhaps other resemblances, as in the bitter rewards 
of the murderers of the two kings. A reminiscence of the open- 
ing scene in Dr. Faustus may also be noted. Faustus is per- 
suading himself, through the contradictions of the Bible itself, 
that divinity is worthless. " Stipendium peccati mors est," he 
says. "That's hard. Si pecasse negamus fallimur et nulla est 
in nobis Veritas. Why then belike we must sin, and so conse- 
quently die." Richard, too, in the great soliloquy just before his 
death, sets " the word itself against the word : " 

" As thus, ' Come, little ones ; ' and then again, 
It is as hard to come as for a camel 
To thread the postern of a small needle's eye." 

Some of Marlowe's admirers have declared his play superior to 
Shakespeare. Such a judgment seems unaccountable. The most 
that we can say is that the closing tragedy of Edward is more com- 
pressed and intense than any single scene in the chronicle of 
Richard, and that Shakespeare was slightly influenced, and no 
doubt stimulated, in the simple modesty of his more slowly 
developing genius, by this most conspicuous English play before 
his own. 

2 : 23. Observe the good reasons for introducing the following 
dialogue. 

2 : 24. The play opens naturally with Gaveston, as he is the 
chief complicator of the plot. His character is first shown ; then 
the relation between Edward and the barons is developed. The 
interview between the king and his favourite, just after the barons' 
threats, illustrates the former's reckless independence. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 149 

Gaveston likes Edward instead of despising him for his feeble 
dependence. This personal fondness (rather than love) partly 
dignifies the role ; yet, even in its figures, his speech manifests self- 
ish eagerness for favour. 

"Tanti" is a contemptuous expression for "of no value." 
Observe the elocutionary intention in the metre of the line. 

3 : 56. The speech presents Gaveston's sense of Edward's 
weakness, and his plans for controlling him. These masques 
and pageantries, with their music, poetry, and rich costumes were 
sixteenth century imitations from Italy, and as applied to the 
early fourteenth century are bold anachronisms. Such indiffer- 
ence to historic accuracy is common to the Elizabethan dramatists. 
Ruskin, in Modern Painters, vol. iii. (iv. 7 : 19-20), thus ex- 
pounds the broad principle involved. 

" It is a constant law, as far as I can observe, that the greatest 
men, whether poets or historians, live entirely in their own age, 
and that the greatest fruits of their work are gathered out of their 
own age. Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth century ; Chaucer, 
England in the fourteenth ; Masaccio, Florence in the fifteenth ; 
Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth ; all of them utterly regardless 
of anachronism and minor error of every kind, but getting always 
vital truth out of the vital present. 

' ' If it be said that Shakespeare wrote perfect historical plays on 
subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I answer that they 
are perfect plays just because there is no care about centuries in 
them, but a life which all men recognize for the human life of all 
time ; and this it is, not because Shakespeare sought to give uni- 
versal truth, but because, painting honestly and completely from 
the men about him, he painted that human nature which is, 
indeed, constant enough — a rogue in the fifteenth century being 
at heart what a rogue is in the nineteenth and was in the twelfth ; 
and an honest or a knightly man being in like manner very simi- 
lar to other such at any other time. And the work of these great 
idealists is, therefore, always universal ; not because it is not por- 
trait, but because it is complete portrait down to the heart, which 
is the same in all ages ; and the work of the mean idealists is not uni- 
versal, not because it is portrait, but because it is half portrait — 
of the outside, the manners and the dress, not of the heart. Thus 



150 NOTES. 

Tintoret and Shakespeare paint, both of them, simply Venetian and 
English nature as they saw it in their time, down to the root ; and 
it does for all time ; but as for any care to cast themselves into 
the particular ways and tones of thought or custom, of past time 
in their historical work, you will find it in neither of them, nor 
in any other perfectly great man that I know of." 

There is no reason for the view that the reference to " Italian 
masks" is to cast discredit on Gaveston, on account of the Eng- 
lish dislike of things Italian. 

4 : 62. Actresses were not employed on the English stage before 
the Restoration. The classical character of the presentations 
mentioned in the context furnishes still further illustration of 
the Renaissance spirit among the cultivated people of the day. 

4 : 73. These two sentences are probably a prose addition to 
the speech, added for dramatic purposes, by another hand. 

6:128. Love. Dyce conjectured leave, and Lancaster in the 
next line for Gaveston. 

7 : 159. Kent (historically a child of six at the opening of the 
action), whose preceding speech in opposition to the arrogance of 
the barons showed loyalty to his brother, here begins his moderat- 
ing role, by this disapproval of such partiality to the favourite. 

7 : 165. Regiment = rule. By the king's aggressive patronage of 
Gaveston, his part is made stronger, and the play gains accord- 
ingly, compared with a treatment by which the king might have 
been won by solicitations. 

8 : 188. Channel = gutter. 

9 : 200.= 1. e., They have no right to take me there. Convey 
was used for steal from its sense of carrying secretly. 

9 : 6. Timeless = untimely. 

10 : 19. Removing the hat in respect. In the next line, and at 
the beginning of Warwick's speech, the composition in reference 
to stage-action is interesting. 

10 : 26. Stomach = feel anger. 

11 : 47. Isabella's first appearance is connected with Mortimer, 
no doubt designedly. Here, and at the close of the scene, she 
addresses him with affection. She professes to be withdrawing 
from the court to live in the forest, rather than longer to witness 
the king's estrangement from her. Some time has intervened 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 15 1 

since Scene I. Her tones are those of a loving woman, willing 
to continue suffering, if she can thus save Edward from civil war. 

12 : 72. Frustrate : to be pronounced in three syllables. 

13 : 5. This scene of five lines, both awkward and unnecessary, 
is an example of the play's occasionally clumsy construction. 

14 : 13. Hardly to be thought a reminiscence of Ovid (as Dyce), 
but only one of the Latin pedantries of the time ; in place of 
" How ill they match." The Senecan tragedy is suggested by 
the short speeches and formal phrasing of this dialogue, which 
shows considerable dramatic animation. 

15 : 30. Gaveston was the son of a Gascon knight, and had 
been the king's close companion from boyhood. 

16:49. Fleet = float. Compare this speech with Edward's 
petulant tone just before. 

18:106. The generally whispered news of the banishment, 
immediately upon the act, is an attempt at dramatic naturalness 
at the cost of a reasonable time treatment. 

19 : 127. The custom of wearing miniatures is illustrated by 
Hamlet's reference to Claudius' " pictures in little." 

19 : 136. So the old editions. Dyce reads love for lord. Others 
put a comma after lord, still referring the tear to Gaveston. But 
it is the king who is most affected ; the following line expresses 
the favourite's pain, rising afresh at his lord's sorrow. Cf. Antony 
in Julius Ccesar (III. i. 282). 

" Passion, I see, is catching : for mine eyes, 
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, 
Begin to water." 

Just below, pass = care. 

20 : 147. The addresses to Isabel of both Edward and Gaves- 
ton treat her later complication with Mortimer as a scandal 
already understood, even though Gaveston immediately retracts the 
charge. It is possible that Marlowe fancied the queen's weak- 
nature still loyal (as her lines on the following page assert, after 
Edward and Gaveston withdraw), while she has already been im- 
prudent by too open exhibitions of an inclination toward Morti- 
mer that is as yet innocent. The question will come up again 
presently. 



15 2 NOTES. 

21 : 167. This harsh irony, with the rough stage action im- 
plied, is designed to enhance our pity for the queen, and to aggra- 
vate our sense of the wrong course of Edward. It will be 
observed that the dramatic policy is to excite sympathy for the 
queen, and aversion toward the king and his favourites, through 
the earlier development of the action, and then reverse the effect, 
after the crisis has re-arranged the situation. 

21 : 186. With the heavy effort and the weak literary imitations 
of the soliloquy, we find specific touches, as of " When I left 
sweet France," the success in the reiterations of " Gaveston," 
and the excellent tone of the last line. 

23:223. Torpedo, a kind of eel, that gives a numbing shock. 
The evolution of the metaphor is euphuistic. 

23 : 229. The blurred treatment of the relations between these 
two characters is continued by having this interview conducted in 
private, instead of openly. 

24 : 248. Respect = consideration. 

25 : 279. These four arguments of Mortimer's are obviously 
inconsistent and insincere, in direct opposition to his uncle's advice 
not to ' ' play the sophister. " His character is unscrupulously selfish, 
and his course throughout is that of an insurgent, aiming only at 
personal power. Future advantages to come from an alliance with 
"the sister of the King of France," induce him to consent to a 
temporary recall of Gaveston, although his speech at the end of 
the scene shows that he has no thought of reconciliation. 

27:311. Another of Marlowe's striking single lines redeemed 
from a hard Elizabethan conceit by his force, yet not made better 
by what follows. 

27 : 329. This pretty speech is unusually dramatic in its sugges- 
tion of the stage action. 

29 : 369. The instantaneous execution of the order is a crude- 
ness similar to that under note 18. 

29 : 378. Cousin = niece, as frequently. 

30 : 400. This conciliatory speech, with its five classical parallels, 
that come so inappropriately from the old baron with whose 
" nature war doth best agree," serves to throw more stress on the 
younger Mortimer's renewed resolution to crush Gaveston. 

30 : 408. Cullions = base fellows. Just before, jets =r struts. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 153 

31:417. Such a speech as this, with all its suggestiveness of 
the evils of the royal favouritism, and with its animated description, 
marks Marlowe's development from the style in Tamburlaine. 

31 : 422. Although, as this conclusion shows, the lull in the hos- 
tilities is only of short duration, its introduction has an artistic 
effect. Regarding the First Act as a whole, we must credit 
Marlowe with a clear exposition of the central thought of the play, 
viz., Edward and his favourites vs. a strong combination of power- 
ful nobles. Isabel and Kent, at present on the king's side, are 
set in motion toward a transfer of regard. The king's character 
is delineated as selfish (except to his favourites), disregardful of 
the realm, peevish, passionate, obstinate, and childishly mer- 
curial. 

The construction of Scene iv. is poor. Gaveston's exile is 
demanded, resisted, obtained ; he leaves England ; Isabel en- 
treats, and finally secures, his recall ; he is summoned ; and, after 
a general pacification of king and barons, a new resistance is 
threatened — all in the single scene. 

31:11. The Spensers and Baldock were not prominent as 
Edward's favourites until some ten years after the death of Gaves- 
ton. The deviation from historical fact is justifiable dramatically, 
since their introduction before he passes off the stage establishes 
continuity in the favouritism, and thus tends toward the unity that 
at best can only be partially secured in such a chronicle play. It 
also acquaints us with the successors of Gaveston before they are 
required for the action — an artistic device frequently illustrated in 
Shakespeare. Marlowe degrades these characters' social station (in 
reality the Spensers stood high) for stronger effect, just as with 
the base-born upstart in Gaveston. The linking of this new 
scene with the previous act, through the fiction of these two for- 
tune hunters as dependents on the father of Gaveston's betrothed, 
and the necessity of their securing another patron owing to the 
Earl of Gloucester's death, also manifest some tact in construction. 

32 : 36. Napkin = handkerchief. 

32 : 38. To make a leg was an old phrase for " to bow." 

32 : 43. This little study of the obsequious scholar-lackey is, 
of course, introduced to characterize Baldock as a hypocrite, who 
has been adapting himself to the severe old earl. The lines 



154 NOTES. 

accomplish their end very well, but in the following speech the 
speaker discredits himself too baldly. 

33 '55- This jesting illustrates Marlowe's deficiency in humor. 
Baldock probably means to say that he is a lively fellow, instead 
of being a stiff scholar, who must alway talk with pedantic 
accuracy {proterea quod = because.) Spenser's qicandoquidem (= 
since) may have been the beginning of some student Latin phrase 
of compliance with an invitation or opinion ; that is, " You fall in 
with your company's suggestions in a free, genial way." The 
" gift to form a verb," seems to mean that he can make himself 
a good companion by his clever tricks of new phrases, which the 
fine Elizabethan society affected. 

33 : 58. It is characteristic of Marlowe that he makes scarcely 
anything out of this opportunity for a romantic under-plot. 

34 : 3. Passionate = sorrowful. 

35 : 20. Such devices were familiar at the old triumphs or tour- 
naments. The motto ( = at length, justly), like Lancaster's 
( = death on all sides) announces the renewal of the barons' hos- 
tility to Gaveston, before he returns. The euphuistic illustration 
from " unnatural natural history " is of the 'same order as Morti- 
mer's " torpedo " in I, 4. 

36:58. The same expression in reference to the same event, 
that was used by Gaveston's betrothed, in the preceding scene. 

40 : 138. This incident is another example of the dramatist's 
invention of a dramatic effect. By the king's recklessness regard- 
ing the ills of his lords, and his indifference to draining the 
resources of the people, sympathy is still further withdrawn from 
the side of the plot that forms the resistance-element during the 
earlier action, and is transferred to the side that forms the rising 
and aggressive movement. 

40 : 144. Observe the trisyllabic " throughout." 

41 : 149. Another cue to the player's action. Observe the 
unusual compression and vigour of the entire passage — one of Mar- 
lowe's best exhibitions of dramatic power, as the two barons 
press before the king with defiant gestures, and volley their 
charges of the popular distress, national perils, and proofs of his 
unkingly character, and without allowing him to respond even by 
an exclamation. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 155 

41 : 160. Kerns = inferior foot-soldiers. 

41 : 167. Sort = a small company, a " lot." 

42:183. Tancock quotes the hint for these picturesque lines, 
from Holinshed : " King Edward, with a mighty army bravely 
furnished, and gorgeously appareled, more seemly for a triumph 
than meet to encounter with the cruel enemy in the field, entered 
Scotland." 

42 : 191. The song is adapted from Fabyan. Lemans = lovers. 
Rombelow is a refrain word in old songs. The battle referred to 
was fought two years after Gaveston's death. Wigmore in the 
following line was Mortimer's property. 

43:207. In this crisis, Kent comes out distinctly on the 
barons' side, the upbuilding of their cause in the sympathy of the 
audience being furthered through his previously conservative 
course. Kent's moderation is well conceived, but there is no 
skilful shading in the transition, and Edward's violent and fool- 
ish temper is couched almost childishly. 

43 : 220. Observe the renewed ambiguity respecting the queen. 

44 : 227. This Senecan single-line dialogue once more illus- 
trates Marlowe's general tendency to begin his speeches at the 
opening of a verse, instead of increasing the naturalness and 
variety of tone by breaking the line with the close and opening of 
two speeches, as the later Elizabethan drama learned to do. 

45 : 247. Thus the two Favourite-threads are knit, and Edward 
aggravates his previous behaviour by the luxurious delay with which 
he trifles with his political situation. The scene is crowded 
again : Gaveston returns, Edward and the barons quarrel, Kent 
is dismissed, and it is reported that the earls are already up in 
arms. 

46 : 8. Cast — conjecture. 

46 : 16. There was no reason for his returning secretly, and no 
suggestion in the preceding scene that he did so. 

46 : 22. The old, but inaccurate, assumption that the name 
Mortimer was derived from crusading service in the region of the 
Dead Sea. 

49 : 59. These lines, and the speeches of Isabel on the two 
pages preceding, seem intended as transitional. Just before Lan- 
caster and the others enter, her soliloquy indicates that she is 



I5 6 NOTES. 

absorbed in love for her husband. But when she meets Mortimer, 
she complains to him that she is insulted and cast off, and that 
discredit is thrown on her relations with him, by the king. As 
Mortimer leaves her, he seems to refer to some earlier entreaty for 
her love, although his line is ambiguous. When she is alone 
again, she sums up the situation as hopeless, yet she resolves to 
importune the king once more before taking such a step as leav- 
ing England. 

Considerations that may better be noted later, render her real 
character during these opening scenes uncertain. So far, how- 
ever, as the first half of the play goes, we might state the case 
thus : Mortimer's earlier and present help and gentleness appeal 
to her. Her only desire is for some one to whom her affection 
may cling. She here asserts to the others once more, and to her- 
self, that Gaveston is the only cause of her alienation, just as she 
confesses a yearning toward Mortimer. As soon as this point of 
inclination is reached, Marlowe is characterizing her according to 
his own ideas of sentiment, by representing her as whirling sud- 
denly : 

" Where both deliberate, the love is slight." 

Such abruptness is not necessarily untrue to nature. Assume that 
this woman for years had endured neglect and insult, while 
remaining loving and patient. Like the action of cumulative 
drugs, there comes a last injury that sums up the latent forces of 
those that have preceded. She had depended on Mortimer, with 
womanly trust, as an upholder of the cause by which she hoped to 
secure a reconciliation with the king. Gradually, this trust led 
to dependence, and she came into a weak woman's subjection to 
the far-sighted and ambitious intriguer. Whether such a view is 
correct, can be considered later. 

51 : 29. It will be noticed that the hour for Gaveston's fall is 
immediately after he has separated the king from nobles, Kent, 
and Isabella. It is here that the redeeming traits in his character 
are introduced, a steady nerve, under his easy lightness of tone, 
and his love and constancy toward the king. For the purpose 
of dignifying the approaching catastrophe, his relations with 
Edward are thus assumed as genuinely devoted and a reaction of 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 157 

compassion toward the fallen favourite is excited by the brutal lan- 
guage of the barons, and the treachery by which Pembroke's con- 
sideration is frustrated. Gaveston is certainly one of the poet's 
cleverest and best sustained characters. 

55:5. Centre apparently is used, as often, for the middle of 
the earth, and therefore the lowest spot for falling. So 
Wiclif (Murray, s. v.), " As the centre is the lowest of all things." 
It is perhaps in keeping with the spirited tone of the speech to 
accept the punctuation that puts an interrogation after " life," 
and an exclamation after "bliss," making "centre of all my 
bliss ! " his thought's apostrophe to the king. This is effective, 
and is borne out by Edward's " centre of all misfortune," in 
iv. 6, yet it seems unlike Marlowe. 

55 : 14. Shadow = ghost. The response of Warwick that 
follows shows again that Marlowe could write incisively ; the irony 
of these two lines is made sterner by their reserve. 

58:56. Spare is elongated in pronunciation, as " care " else- 
where. 

59 : 78. As a matter of fact, the prince was not born until some 
five months after Gaveston's death. Dramatically, he is intro- 
duced here to render his approaching part in the action more 
natural. It is worth while to compare this subsequent study of a 
child with Shakespeare's boys. 

63:177. This scene aims to show the fruitlessness of the 
barons' moderation, in laying no check upon Edward himself. 
Immediately upon news of Gaveston's death, he allies himself 
with new favourites, who are assumed as the earlier characters' 
entire counterparts, even to low birth, and to these he transfers 
Gaveston's honours. He puts himself into their control, and at 
their ill advice manifests disregard of his kingdom and renewed 
arrogance, and takes a passionate vow of vengeance for Gaveston. 
Thus the personally loyal movement for reform has borne no 
happy result, and the feeling of sympathy for the forthcoming 
rebellion grows stronger. 

64: 17. Trains = stratagems. 

65:35- This concluding dialogue is an example of the old 
defiances before stage battles, an example of which Shakespeare 
retained in Julius Casar, Act V, 



158 NOTES. 

67 : 86. Regiment = authority. Isabella has gone to France, 
but not on the king's errand. The speech of Levune that follows 
is equivalent to Gaveston's earlier innuendoes, and is to be sim- 
ilarly interpreted, either as representing the queen as uniformly 
insincere, or else as clumsy dramatic treatment, in assuming as 
a fact what is to come true only by and by. 

The largely similar roles of Gaveston and the younger Spenser 
are separated as the latter becomes more of a political force. 

68 : 3. i. e. y Let natural affection yield to patriotism. Observe 
Kent's belief in Isabella's devotion and grief, even here, as well as 
the poetic opening and close of the speech. 

69 : 7. Here, when the queen has thrown off her fidelity, and 
the plot is ready to open on Edward, as a victim, Marlowe intro- 
duces what we may count the first stroke in his reverse action. 
The sentimental fallacy of the king's real openness to kind man- 
agement, which is strongly developed later, is touched in this 
expression of his young son's instinct toward loyalty and trust. 

70: 31. I have substituted a new punctuation for the editor's 
obscure 

" Ah, sweet Sir John ! even to the utmost verge 
Of Europe, or the shores of Tanais, 
Will we with thee to Hainault — so we will." 

The passage refers to the invitation given just above by this 
uncle of the young Edward's future wife. The thought is, with 
such a friend we would go to the Don, or to the furthest boun- 
dary of the Continent, much more, to Hainault. 

70:45. This, spoken immediately upon Mortimer's arrival, 
indicates an understanding between them before the queen left 
England. The conclusion of the line appears to mean that she 
wishes that treason to the king were the worst feature of their 
situation. 

71 : 57- Kent looks forward only to a loyal final arrangement. 
In the preceding line, appointed means " in warlike equipment." 
The speech that follows = Kent's aspiration for England's wel- 
fare must be secured by the sword. 

71 : 67. i. e., To challenge the king to try his strength with us ; 
— the game called prison-base, familiar in Elizabethan times. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 159 

74 :45. This line may have been in Shakespeare's ear when he 
made Juliet say : 

" Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, 
Towards Phoebus' lodging." 

With the following line, cf. the earliest passages in Tambur- 
Iaine{¥l. I., v. 2). 

" Let ugly darkness, with her rusty coach. 

Engirt with tempests, wrapt in pitchy clouds," etc. 

There is a shade of dramatic irony in this eagerness for what 
is to prove his ruin. The point suggested in note 2, above, is 
touched upon again, in the virtuous and paternal reference to the 
prince that follows. 

74 : 1. The scene represents the address of the insurgents, on 
landing. Only the five leaders, however, are brought upon the 
stage. The queen assumes the prominent position in antagonis- 
ing Edward. 

76 : 27. The judicious character of Kent again turns as the 
situation changes. He had wished only to attack the Spensers and 
redeem the king ; but as he sees the treason and amorous con- 
federacy of Mortimer and Isabella, he relents toward his brother, 
and with him our sympathy is again shifted. The " subtle queen " 
is now made known to him as hypocritical. By the pity and 
regret of Kent, the signs of villainy in Mortimer, and of corrup- 
tion and insincerity in the queen, the elder Spenser's dying rebuke 
at the close of the scene (with its standard of loyalty that the play 
assumes as unquestionable), as well as the accumulating misfortunes 
of the weak king (after all the most efficient appeal to the tenderer 
judgment), Marlowe is preparing to render the tragical end pathetic 
rather than judicial. Observe the increased interest and the 
altered personal tone in the king's speeches hereafter. 

77 • 54- I follow Dyce in giving this line to Mortimer instead 
of Kent. Unless we make "Edward" a vocative, the line is 
inconsistent with Edmund's position, 

80 : 16. The elocutionary tone of the line is too good to 
justify striking out the second " come " in the interest of uniform 
accent. The address is suggested by the opening of Act II. 
This transition from the reckless, pleasure-loving, youthful king, 



160 NOTES. 

to the man bent by seriousness and the load of years, is of course 
for the purpose of associating feelings of reverence and pity with his 
fall (cf. parallels in Shakespeare.) Marlowe's diction and poetical 
freedom are rising here. The king's last speech before the 
captors enter is especially happy in its suggestion of his old nature, 
overpowered by physical exhaustion. Observe, also, the almost 
lyrical tone of the three lines at its close. 

81:54. "Seneca, Thyestes, 613." — Dyce. 

82:70. Yearns. Dyce reads " earns." 

82: 81. i. e., Kenilworth. 

82 : 90. This is the old reading, except for the dash ; Dyce 
omits the last two words. The meaning may be — the monks and 
his companions are his only friends, and the latter must die. With 
a dash at the end of the line, however, we may understand the 
reiterations as refering to Baldock and Spenser, alone, and as due 
to his emotion at the idea of losing them. The recurrence of 
" these," in Rice's response, is possibly a satirical echo of the 
repetitions. 

83 : 94. The same sentiment as in the opening soliloquy of 
Faustus, " che sera, sera." 

83 : 98. A fine conclusion to the parting. As was observed of 
the affection between the king and Gaveston, such regard digni- 
fies the characters above a relation of dupe and parasite ; as true 
friends, in their fall they command interest and compassion. 

83: in. Note the contrast between Spenser's conventional and 
frigid exclamation and this speech of Baldock's. When ambition 
is found vain, the former student returns to himself. The manner 
accords with the mood, earnest and noble, until the fanciful and 
weak turn of the last line. The concluding couplet (observe how 
few Marlowe admits) might be explained, as are many of Shake- 
speare's, by the aphoristic thought, but is more probably due to the 
rhyming tradition, according to which the ear felt a firmer conclu- 
sion to a final passage. This couplet would tend to confirm one's 
impression that the prose appendix is not Marlowe's. He scarcely 
ever introduces prose. The dying speech of Zabina in Tambur- 
laine — a speech far from mere insane ranting — on grounds of 
style one feels sure is not his, and the letter in the present Act of 
this play is hardly in point, since it is extraneous to the dialogue. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 161 

84 : 10. The herb is dittany. For a third time the poet plays 
with euphuistic natural history illustrations. 

Now that his crown is being torn away, Edward first appears 
really to be wearing it. In these later scenes, the uninteresting char- 
acter of the earlier play appears as at last a king. The evident 
impression made on Shakespeare, by the opening lines of the Act, 
has been pointed out under note 45. Save for a few passages, 
the drama has moved heavily : for the poet has been studying to 
be a playwright, and to substitute a well-ordered whole for the 
irregular brilliancies of his previous work. As for poetic feeling 
and expression, he has shown himself under constraint. But now, 
as was observed in the preceding scene, the situation has been 
developed, and the poet comes to the front again, in imaginative 
speech and in the emotional interpretation of a character. Mar- 
lowe's early love of imagery and power appears again, his verse 
becomes freer and finer, and, while crudities constantly are crop- 
ping out, we find excellent ideas, noble expression for individual 
lines, and a general sensation of imaginative control. 

84 : 23. Notice how this thought runs through the conclusion 
of the play. 

86 : 59. This great line, and the passage that ensues, express 
in a matured form Marlowe's old sense of the preciousness of 
power, as in Tamburlaine. Such clinging to the semblance as in 
itself a reality, is, on its more trivial side, perfectly in keeping 
with Edward's earlier nature, while by its stronger and pathetic 
aspects we are won still further to consideration and pity for the 
failing fortunes of a monarch. 

86 : 68. The beginning of the wonderful final soliloquy of his 
own Dr. Faustus is in the poet's mind : 

" Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, 
That time may cease, and midnight never come ; 
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make 
Perpetual day ; or let this hour be but 
A year, a month, a week, a natural day, 
That Faustus may repent, and save his soul ! " 

86 : 77. Pass not = do not regard. In the preceding line, 
fondly = foolishly. 

87:83. Lamb, after quoting this passage in his Specimens 



1 62 NOTES. 

of English Dramatic Poets, remarks: "the reluctant pangs of 
abdicating royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakespeare 
scarce improved in his Richard //." (The parallel scene in the 
latter play should be closely compared with this, and various 
inferences noted.) 

88:105. The present pathos, and oblivion of the past rela- 
tions of king and queen, in this hard but brilliant image, are effec- 
tive, yet not in a Shakespearian way. Just above, observe 
Edward's eager perception of the bystander's emotion. 

88 : 123. Sophistication, indeed, but well contrived for the 
effect that the poet desires. The struggle in reference to surren- 
dering the symbol of kingship is determined at the end by Leices- 
ter's appeal to the father. " If they go, the prince shall lose 
his right." This unselfish ambition for the boy's royal future, the 
repeated expressions of anxiety for the " lamb, encompassed by 
wolves," these crowding emotions of pride, despair, and dignified 
regret for the errors of his reign, his appeal to the tenderness of 
the false queen, the occasional flash of arbitrary and wilful pas- 
sion, render the scene genuinely powerful. There is also skill in 
softening our feeling for the captive, through Leicester his jailer, 
and through aggravating his sufferings by the plan to transfer him 
to a sterner keeper. Two of the king's sententious exclamations, 
near the end of scene i., suggest the poet's own temper. 

90 : 20. Mortimer's suggestion to Isabella, that even in cap- 
tivity the king is dangerous, draws from her an assent to any- 
thing on which he may resolve, barring the safety of the prince. 
If we regard the earlier delineation of the queen's nature as ac- 
cording to the dramatic convention of the soliloquy we are bound 
to regard it, viz., as affectionate, clinging to the king's love, and 
tender even to weakness, this concluding treatment seems inde- 
fensible. No doubt, Marlowe might have protrayed such a 
development, but he certainly has not done so. There has been 
no adequate transition from the introductory Isabel to this heart- 
less wife, who not only assents to her paramour's suggestions but 
even seems to lead in cruelty. All through the earlier scenes hints 
were dropped of her duplicity and hypocritical cunning, from 
which we have to acquit her, on the evidence of those scenes as a 
whole. Yet here the former charges are substantiated : she is in the 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 163 

relations with Mortimer of which she was suspected, and her in- 
sincerity and deceit are unquestionable. Indeed, as for this latter 
point, Marlowe has sacrificed artistic effect by the heavy lines with 
which he has drawn her hypocrisy in the addresses to the mes- 
senger and to Matrevis, and in her advice to Mortimer respecting 
Kent. Whereas Mortimer, besides, plans to wear the king out, and 
thus destroy him, while escaping the open danger of murder; she, 
just before Gurney enters, suggests immediate violence, if only 
she may avoid direct personal agency in it. In Marlowe's plan of 
building up sympathy against the king until the tragedy was pre- 
pared for, he wished to enlist the audience on the queen's side at 
first, as a loving and injured wife, then after the reverse action 
was under way, he aimed to intensify pity for the victim by every 
device ; and what would create a stronger reaction in his favour than 
the shamelessness of such a woman as this later Isabel ? So, with 
this ultimate treatment in mind, and as if to give a clue to what is 
coming, he tainted her early innocence by slanderous blemishes, 
which her transformed nature afterward proceeded to verify. It 
was reasonable that she should turn to Mortimer (as is explained 
in note 105), but her moral reconstruction is unaccounted for. 
Nor is her love for Mortimer treated with any interest ; it is an 
assertion, not a delineation. Her one quality that pleases is fond- 
ness for her son, yet her last address to him is a falsehood. Had 
Marlowe omitted the earlier innuendoes, and her compromising 
connection with Mortimer, in Act I.; and. after she forsakes the 
king, could he have depicted her as a weak and gentle prey to 
Mortimer's adroitness, standing against her husband in virtue of a 
misguided sense of duty to the prince (as one of her last speeches 
feigningly asserts), and exhibiting some womanly compassion and 
yearning for what once had been her life's centre, now sunken and 
dying, then the conclusion would have satisfied the exigencies of 
the historical plot, while remaining consistent with the earlier 
character. As the play stands, we are compelled to conclude that, 
without natural evolution, a weak woman has passed from the 
state of a loving to that of a " fiend-like queen." Yet, notwith- 
standing those early soliloquies, the author perhaps thought of her 
from the beginning as not only feebly sentimental, of a superficial 
moral nature, but also as a dissembler. 



164 NOTES. 

95 : 116. Aged Edward, for dramatic and emotional effect. 
He died at the age of forty-three. It is not necessary to explain 
this by saying that the Chronicles call him " the old king," by 
contrast with his son. 

96 : 14. A line of four feet. Dyce inserts only at the beginning. 

97 : 36. Tancock quotes the dramatist's authority for the fact 
in Stow's Chronicle. The question would remain, whether such 
realism is desirable for the stage. The incident may be contrasted 
with the king's own earlier treatment of the bishop in I. 1. 
(note 53). 

98 : 67. The attempted rescue serves to introduce the execution 
of Kent, as a sacrifice to Edward's cause, as well as to provide 
this animated little episode. It seems unfair to state Kent's char- 
acter as " feeble and yet impulsive." The development is faint, 
but the conception is excellently contrived to represent the reason- 
able judgment that never alters, although it changes its position 
as the conditions vary. For Kent's course is consistent through- 
out ; his error was in judging Mortimer and Isabella as sincere 
reformers. If the outline of his role had been filled in boldly, he 
would have stood out as a striking exponent of the poet's view of 
his plot — where an erring king becomes a martyr when his divine 
right is assailed. The earl's atonement for his mistake by thus 
sacrificing his life, although tamely handled, has dramatic merit. 

99 : 12. The poet follows an old authority. 

99:29. Lightborn is a great advance on Marlowe's earlier 
villain in The Jew of Malta, who was also an adept in poison- 
ing. From Italian influences, the Elizabethan drama has many 
an instance of these arts, as in Webster, Tourneur, or Beaumont 
and Fletcher. Browning's The Laboratory gives the spirit of 
the practice, with the omission of those visible horrors from which 
the older poets did not flinch. 

IOI : 59. Imbecility = feeble health. The satirical humour of 
Mortimer's account of his adroit methods, with the fling at six- 
teenth century Puritans, suggests his easy sense of security. 

IOI 165. Dyce substitutes rule for rules, which is the reading 
of the edition of 1598. 

IOI : 66. Our sympathy for Edward increases, as we see that 
the revolution has left the radical situation unchanged. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 165 

IOI : 68. Ovid, Met. vi. 195, Dyce. Marlowe uses his dramatic 
irony heavily. 

105:25. Lock is Bullen's emendation for " lake." For con- 
venience, Edward is represented as on a level with the front of 
the stage, Lightborn probably drawing a curtain (so Dyce sug- 
gests), as if unlocking and opening the door to the " vault." The 
king's use of " there " is to be noticed, in his reference to the 
dungeon, presently, and the mention of his dripping robes, as if 
he had climbed up and entered the apartment where the scene 
opens. Yet cf. Gurney's last line. 

105 141. Observe the unnerved terror in these hurried, broken 
questions, and the king's instinctive sense of his peril, as he sees 
the villain, whose attempts to be soothing and reassuring increase 
his ugly look. In Lightborn's "To murder you," mark the 
metrical protraction of " murder," and its effect. 

106:51. Through his pathetic eagerness for sympathy, 
Edward pours out his story even to the assassin in whose brows 
he already sees his tragedy written. Nothing in this recital of his 
wrongs equals the parenthetical " being a king." The very word 
for royalty had majesty to Marlowe, as his lines in Tamburlaine 
show. 

106 : 69. A wonderful touch of contrast between this present 
and that past of youth and chivalry and love, worthy to remind us 
of Francesca's cry {Inferno, v.), 

" That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." 

The fallacy in " For her sake " moves us as for a betrayed lover ; 
we no longer remember the beginning of the play. 

106 : 71. Dyce suggests that the bed was thrust upon the stage 
from the wing, after Gurney and Matrevis withdrew. There 
could be no more pathetic means of depicting the sufferings and 
exhaustion that the king has undergone, than this enticement to 
sleep, and the struggle between nature and the terror of murder, 
the former prevailing. Compare, for artistic effect, with the 
bald opening of the scene. 

107: 82. The first " thought " has been suspected as corrupt, 
but without reason. The passage is admirable : the touch of 
impulsive courtesy, quite in keeping with Edward's naturally easy 



1 66 NOTES. 

and generous disposition, that would heal with the gift of his last 
jewel the injury done by his suspicion ; and confused with this, 
the terrified undertone, that would propitiate this villain. 

107 : 90. So the first edition. Later, " alive " was omitted. 
Dyce, and others, read " still remain alive," for the verse ; but, as 
Tancock remarks, the rhythm of the line is far more striking with 
a pause after the first and second words. This return to his pas- 
sion for the crown is finely imagined. 

108:106. Lamb's sentence has been often quoted: "The 
death-scene of Marlowe's king moves pity and terror beyond any 
scene, ancient or modern, with which I am acquainted." That 
was perhaps written just after Lamb laid down the play : it appears 
extravagant. Yet we may well count this an extraordinary pas- 
sage, an incontestable proof (as it is the only fully conclusive 
evidence) that Marlowe possessed higher dramatic faculty, as well 
as poetic. 

In contrast with the sensational horrors of The Jew, we 
should note the omission of atrocious details, such as " the red- 
hot spit " previously mentioned. 

109 : 5. Secret : to be pronounced with three syllables. 

112: 64. These strong last lines of Mortimer once more save 
a necessary death from degradation. He is redeemed from an 
abject end by his dignity and calmness in fronting the future, as 
well as by pride in success, even though at an end, and his con- 
sideration for Isabella's sorrow. The first lines are of course a 
reminder of his assertion (in V. 2.), that he " makes Fortune's 
wheel turn as he please," and also of his application to himself of 
Ovid's line in V. 4. and his vaunt, just before his arrest, that he 
stands "as Jove's high tree," etc., examples of dramatic irony 
handled not too skilfully. 

113:100. Aside from the suitable infliction of justice on 
Mortimer, observe the artistic effect of closing the confusions of 
the drama with a firm power upon the throne ; a method, indeed, 
familiar to Elizabethan, as well as to classical playwrights. 



TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT. 167 



TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT. 

117. This drama is in two parts, of five Acts each, and recounts 
the adventures of the famous conqueror. Its long lists of 
"dramatis personse " are little more than names, for we observe 
few attempts, even, at individual characterization. The play has 
no plot, properly speaking, but consists of a string of incidents 
based upon the account given in Fortescue's Forest, supplemented 
by the work of Perondinas (cf. The Academy, 24, 265). It 
was first printed in 1590, and is the earliest drama in blank verse 
known to have been produced on the public stage. Except in 
passages, Tamburlaine possesses no permanent interest ; the events 
are extravagantly conceived, and the idealisation of might and 
ambition in the protagonist (who is the only significant character), 
is associated with few traits of pleasing truth to nature. Con- 
sidered merely as poetry, there is a vast amount of ranting and 
bombast. Yet even the hyperboles and distractions are touched 
with genius, and more than one passage shows a passionate 
strength that had never previously appeared in English verse. 
Tamburlaine contains few ideas, but for the thrill that they 
communicate by their great utterance, and their mastering sensa- 
tions, its best fragments may claim high rank in English verse. Of 
the selections that follow, two or three are introduced as illustra- 
tions of Marlowe's early manner, apart from their poetical quality. 

117:15. Resolved = dissolved. Observe the poetical associa- 
tions of place throughout the extract, and the specific adjective 
with " Volga." 

118 138. Portly = stately. 

118 145. Merchants = trading ships. Vail = lower their flags, 
in surrender. 

119:50. Weed = garment. The reference is to an obscure 
myth that represented Jupiter as wooing Mnemosyne under the 
disguise of a shepherd. Ovid gives only two words to the story 
in Met. vi. 114. Marlowe apparently reverts to it later, and evi- 
dently liked it : perhaps through its associating "the chiefest of 
the gods" with the birth of the Muses. This is one of Marlowe's 
single line poems, and shows, as do his best passages frequently, 
the impression made upon him by the classics. Many of his fifty 



1 68 NOTES. 

classical reminiscences in Part I. might well have been spared. 
But throughout his work it is true of Marlowe, as of Shakespeare 
himself, that he finds the Greek and Latin mythology and legend 
poetically invaluable. It is worth while to reflect over the 
influence of these ancient tales on modern literature, as imagina- 
tive stimulants, or as aids to pictorial effect, to a vivid brevity, to 
the poetic feeling through associations, etc. Our Christian 
religion is held too gravely for poet's lightness, and the non- 
classical inheritance of popular myth is relatively small, unat- 
tractive, and unfamiliar. Poetry instinctively compares, illus- 
trates, identifies, and suggests : it requires material for these 
methods of its art that shall be generally understood, in itself be 
beautiful, and, while touching the modern intelligence and feeling 
by its universal truth, yet be remote from commonplace familiar- 
ity. This is accomplished by those legends — all imagination, 
sentiment, and grace — that lead the fancy into fields still fresh in 
the world's early dreaming. What a loss poetry would have 
suffered, had Dante, e. g., or Shakespeare, or Milton been denied 
these resources ! Fine as Marlowe's treatment often is, he shows 
little restraint, however, and often puts literary allusions in 
speeches whose supposed authors could never have used them — 
half Renaissance enthusiasm, half boyish pedantry. 

119:59. Competitor ■= companion. 

119:11. Pitch = height ; here used for shoulders. Marlowe 
may have modeled this description on some account of Timur's 
imposing appearance ; at any rate, this development shows youth- 
ful exuberance. He quite omits any hint of his hero's lameness. 
( l^ambiirlaine = Timur the lame.) 

120 : 31. Marlowe's ear for the musical effect of proper names 
in poetry is illustrated by these lines, as elsewhere more fully. 
From Homer to Victor Hugo, we find poets liking to use such 
names, largely because of their very sound ; sometimes, too, 
through an imaginative suggestiveness, as from associations of 
travel, history, romance, etc. Cf. Milton's repeated illustrations 
of this, as in 

" Blind Thamyris and blind Mseonides, 
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old," 

or in the quotation given below, in note 124 : 37. 



TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT. 169 

121 : 53. The magnificent outburst of passion for the illimit- 
able world that was opening to the England of Marlowe is im- 
paired, both here and in the greater lines of the following selec- 
tion, by the specific application to Tamburlaine's ambition for 
royalty. To some extent, no doubt, this feeling for material 
power represents the poet himself. But in a truer sense, the ap- 
plication is a weakness due to dramatic necessity. That is, 
Marlowe starts to express his character's specific desire. The in- 
spiration of the idea of mastery carries him beyond his theme, to 
the "knowledge infinite" and the infinite chance of intellectual 
conquest, which he himself, the scholar-poet of twenty-two, sees 
opening to his as yet uncorrupted energy and ambition. Then he 
turns the speeches back to the context, by his anticlimax of a 
crown. No one has ever expressed so well a young man's 
emotion at the new consciousness of what a world there is, all 
before him. 

122 : 72. The ultimate physical bases of the old science, earth, 
air, fire, and water, to which the four humours, melancholy, blood, 
choler, and phlegm, respectively corresponded. Marlowe has in 
mind the Empedoclean theory that the elements are acted upon 
by two forces, of unity and discord ; the latter builds up the sep- 
arate organisms, which, in its complete efficiency, the former 
would reduce to an ideal sphere. Thus, in a certain way, the 
" warring within our breasts for regiment " (i. e., for rule) is the 
condition of our physical life ; and even so, the faculties of mind 
must always " wear themselves, and never rest." 

123 : 6. Facts = deeds. 

123:12. Marlowe applies the familiar name of the Muses, 
" Pierides," to the nine daughters of Pierus, the Emathian king. 
They assumed to be superior to the Mnemonides, and challenged 
them to a contest of song. Ovid relates the story in Met. v. 294. 
The song itself was Calliope's, and it is interesting to notice that 
this type for Marlowe of sweetness in verse is the lovely narra- 
tive of Proserpina, that is echoed by so many modern poets (as 
by Dante, Purgatory, 28, 50 ; Shakespeare, Winter's Tale, iv. 4, 
116; Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 268). The reference in the fol- 
lowing line is apparently to the famous contest for supremacy in 
Attica between Athena and Poseidon, in which the greater deities 



170 NOTES. 

sat as judges, though the familiar forms of the legend do not intro- 
duce the music that the poet seems to have in mind. 

124 : 37. Observe the elaborate epic structure of the simile, 
with its parenthesis of independent description, and the heroic 
tone throughout. Compare Milton's fine lines {Paradise Lost, ii. 
636): 

" As when far off at sea a fleet descried 
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds 
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles 
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring 
Their spicy drugs ; they on the trading flood, 
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, 
Ply stemming nightly toward the pole ; so seemed 
Far off the flying Fiend." 

In tone and manner, the two alike show classical influence, 
connected with diction, as well as imagination. In the last line 
of Marlowe's parenthesis, "lightning" is a trisyllable. 

125 : 1. The following is perhaps Marlowe's most splendid 
passage ; at least it contains his finest single conception, and is 
perhaps the longest sustained episode of pure poetry to be found 
in his plays. Unlike his habitually simple and transparent thought 
and imagery, the meaning here is partly involved. " His rap- 
tures " hurry him from one figure to another, and suggest fancies 
not always safe from the charge of extravagance (or once even of 
the grotesque, if the conceit be rigidly developed). The eager- 
ness of his " fine frenzy " to tell his main thought, and at the 
same instant all the side sensations that seem to him one with it, 
brings about such a curiously involved construction that, in fifty- 
six lines, we meet only three or four full pauses in the sense, of 
which one falls after a single independent line. No reader can 
miss the contagion of the poet's mood, or frounce critically at an 
image or two that only the warm glow of imagination can make 
quite alive. By its converse the saying is suggested here that unless 
the writer is impatient, the reader will be. Marlowe's splendidly 
impatient enthusiasm carries the reader along with its own exhil- 
aration, for the poet's mood is filled with the emotion of beauty. 
Aside from its poetry, this passage is especially suggestive of 
Marlowe himself. In respect to the versification, observe its 



TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT. 1J1 

unusual freedom. It is less confined to the single line, or the 
unrhymed couplet structure, and its rhythmical beauty bears no 
sense of the absence of musical tone, such as we feel in the more 
apprentice-like early blank verse. There are also instances (not 
many, indeed) of the light-ending, or added eleventh syllable, 
which Shakespeare and later masters of the metre have employed so 
frequently to the increase of harmony and ease. In this opening 
line Marlowe makes even twelve syllables with good effect. Two 
illustrations may also be noticed of the nine syllable line (which 
goes back to the fourteenth century, and of which Tennyson 
affords a skilful study near the beginning of "The Vision of 
Sin "), where the first of the five accentual elements of the verse is 
a single syllable. A few illustrations will also be found of accent 
shifted for the sake of that constantly varying tone by which later 
poets have learned to relieve the natural monotony of our blank 
verse, as well as by those so-called resolutions of which Marlowe 
was always diffident. 

125 ' 3. Passion = has the old sense of strong and tender 
pain or sorrow. Zenocrate sympathizes in the distress of 
Damascus : 

" My lord, to see my father's town besieged, 
The country wasted where myself was born, 
How can it but afflict my very soul ? " 

She is also apprehensive for her father, the Soldan, who is 
marching to fight with this invincible Scythian. 

125:8. Resolved = dissolved : i. <?., her tears fall like the 
dew shaken in the morning from blooming sprays. Shakespeare 
also uses dew and pearl as metaphors for tears. 

125 : 9. i. <?., through her pallor and tears, the blue veining on 
her face becomes more distinct. (This may be illustrated by the 
line in Dr. Fanstus — " Arethusa's azured arms.") In the follow- 
ing line observe Marlowe's deviation from mythology in making 
Beauty, instead of Memory, the mother of the Muses, and the 
unconscious suggestion of Marlowe's poetic dependence on sensa- 
tion rather than on thought. 

125:13. This is Cunningham's reading, for "when that," 
and below "make, in," for "making." Dyce thought the sense 



172 NOTES. 

hopelessly obscured. With these changes, the only difficulty is in 
" Ebena," which is to be taken as a personification of " Even." 

125 : 17. The lyrical feeling glances off into this triple rhyme. 
The " angels in their crystal armours" represent the " rapt soul 
sitting in thine eyes," guarded by tears. The preceding lover's 
hyperbole, no new extravagance, is saved from its usual frigid 
effect by the poet's intensity. 

126 : 23. Mycetes and Bajazeth, whom Tamburlaine has already 
overcome. Conceit of foil = anticipation of defeat. 

126 : 26. What follows is Marlowe's most striking thought — 
that the poet's conception of beauty is never spoken adequately. 
The quintessence they still, etc. , = the subtlest distillation of the 
flowers of poetry, in which the human mind (" wit ") appears at 
its highest. The last line of the sentence, " no virtue can di- 
gest " = no power can reduce or express. Should the development 
of the thought appear obscure to any, it is as follows : 

If every power of heart and mind, of all the poets who have 
lived, and if all their purest inspirations of poetry, could be com- 
bined into one single poem and employed in praise of beauty, yet 
something of what they felt would remain, that could never be 
expressed. There is a partial parallel to this cry from the poet 
of emotion, in these lines of Browning, in Sordello, where the 
idea appears in this more modern form, that what is inexpres- 
sible is thought and character; not the poet's dream, but himself : 

"... From true works (to wit, 
Sordello's dream-performances, that will 
Be never more than dreamed), escapes there still 
Some proof, the singer's proper life was 'neath 
The life his song exhibits, this a sheath 
To that ; a passion and a knowledge far 
Transcending these, majestic as they are, 
Smouldered ; his lay was but an episode 
In the bard's life . . ." 

126:44. The construction of this long closing sentence is 
difficult. The meaning is : I, Tamburlaine, the inflexible con- 
queror, am allowing myself to be tempted by Zenocrate to con- 
clude terms with her father. Such a hesitation would be un- 
worthy, were it not in tribute to beauty, which touches every 



TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT. 173 

high-minded hero, and also were not the enticement resisted, as 
I will resist it, and thus prove myself more resolute than Jove 
himself. In the line: " I thus conceiving and subduing both," the 
last word is the adverbial correspondent to " and," placed in the 
old usage after the words connected, instead of before : i. <?., I 
feeling this, yet also subduing it. The text as it stands has 
received emendations, chiefly by Dyce, and is still uncertain. 
The allusion in " the chiefest of the gods," brought to a level with 
shepherds, through love, may be a parallel to the earlier mention 
of Jove (note 16). 

128:40. " And if " is the old double form for " if . " Five lines 
below, " his" is the old form for " its." 

129:54. An affected way of saying "when there is an 
eclipse." " The dragon's head " stands for the moon's ascending 
node, and "his winding train" represents the dragon's tail, an 
old phraseology for the intersection of the ecliptic from north to 
south. 

129: 77. An early illustration of the fondness for music in 
the Elizabethan theatre. Songs were introduced freely, and 
in pathetic passages such as this, slow, soft music was sometimes 
played as an accompaniment. The same practice still prevails ; 
stage customs are not easily broken. 

130 : 87. In Dr. Faustus Marlowe was to write one of his most 
splendid passages on this romantic theme, which Heine called 
the " unwithering ideal of charm and beauty: Jenes ewig 
bliihende Ideal von Anmuth und Schonheit, jene Helena von 
Griechenland." 

130 : 93. The loves of Catullus and Ovid. 

130 : 103. Cavalieros = mounds for cannon. 

131 : 139. The conceit makes a fit conclusion to this remark- 
able passage, characterized as it is, notwithstanding all its force 
and real feeling, by an under-current of extravagance. 

132 : 7. From the innermost to the outermost of the heavenly 
spheres. The moon was the first of the nine celestial circles, and 
the empyrean lay without them all. "Jove" seems used here not 
of the specific god, to whom the sixth sphere was assigned, but of 
the highest divinity. The proper meaning of the entire passage 
is in its poetic imagery. Below Rhamnusia stands for Nemesis, 



174 NOTES. 

133 ' 13- Act IV. Sc. 3. This is the famous original of Pistol's 
parody — (in 2 Henry IV., II. 4. 177): 

" Shall pack-horses, * 

And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, 
Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day, 
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals, 
And Trojan Greeks ? nay, rather damn them with 
King Cerberus, and let the welkin roar." 

Dyce gives a list of passages where the episode is ridiculed, to 
which others might be added. Lamb says : " Till I saw this 
passage with my own eyes, I never believed that it was anything 
more than a pleasant burlesque of mine Ancient's." 

134 : 44. What a contrast, to come upon such lines, after that 
address to the royal captives with this little picture of Pluto and 
Proserpina, classical in form as in feeling, cf. note 117 : 15, above. 

135 : 9. There is an audacious brilliancy in this close, an end- 
ing consistent with the poet's treatment of his hero hitherto. If 
we are able to assume such a character, we can be impressed by 
such a grandiose death-bed defiance. A comparison with the 
dying lines of Dryden's hero, in Tyrannic Love, is in Marlowe's 
favour. Maximin challenges the Gods thus : 

" Your altars I with smoke of gums did crown, 
For which you leaned your hungry nostrils down, 

But by the Gods (by Maximin, I meant) 
Henceforth I, and my world, 
Hostility with you, and yours, declare. 
Look to it, Gods ; for you the aggressors are. 
Keep you your rain and sunshine in your skies, 
And I'll keep back my flame and sacrifice. 
Your trade of Heaven shall soon be at a stand, 
And all your goods lie dead upon your hand. 

Before I die— 
Bring me Porphyrius and my empress dead ; — 
I would brave Heaven, in my each hand a head." 

and as he stabs Placidius, he dies exclaiming : 

•' And shoving back this earth on which I sit, 
I'll mount, and scatter all the Gods I hit." 

It is well worth while to compare such a passage of the false-sub- 



THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD. 175 

lime written by a great poet at the age of thirty-eight, and in the 
wake of a great dramatic era, with the hyperboles of Marlowe 
when twenty-two, experimenting in our first effective English 
play. The two poets are alike in lacking humour, but otherwise, 
what an essential difference there is between the rodomontade of 
Dryden, and those exaggerations of Marlowe that continually 
impress us with the sense of a gift for greatness, if only in the use 
of words. 

Dryden lived to laugh at his own Maximin, and to write an 
admirable play : so even those to whom Tamburlaine appears 
mainly ranting, must recognize the promise of its energy. Yet 
some there must be who will care for these first-fruits for their 
own sake, as poetry that touches sensibility, even where the criti- 
cal faculty is not persuaded. Even where we feel the ranting, we 
feel, too, that there is the tone and touch of a hidden Apollo. But 
there are times when meaning and manner alike are those of the 
god revealed. 



THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD. 

136. The adjective of the title was a favourite Elizabethan word 
for expressing sentimental emotion. The text is that given by 
Dyce, who speaks of the poem as follows : "It was originally 
printed, but wanting the fourth and sixth stanzas, in The Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim, 1599. It was for the first time published 
complete and subscribed with the real author's name, ' C. Mar- 
lowe,' in England's Helicon, 1600. Few songs have been 
more popular than this : we find both a Reply to and an Imita- 
tion of it in England's Helicon ; snatches of it are sung by Sir 
Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor ; and Donne and 
Herrick have each (unsuccessfully) attempted to rival it. In 1653, 
when it was comparatively little known, Isaac Walton, by insert- 
ing it in The Complete Angler, gave it fresh celebrity. Making 
no appeal to the heart, nor having any force of sentiment, it 
cannot be regarded as a love-song of the highest class : but it is 
among the very best of those sweet and fanciful strains with which 
genius has enriched the fabled Arcadia." 



I7 6 NOTES. 

Here is Walton's way of introducing the poem in The Complete 
Angler: "As I left this place, and entered into the next field, 
a second pleasure entertained me ; 'twas a handsome milkmaid 
that had cast away all care, and sung like a nightingale ; her voice 
was good, and the ditty fitted for it ; 'twas that smooth song 
which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago ; 
and the milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made 
by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days. They were old- 
fashioned poetry, but choicely good ; I think much better than 
that now in fashion in this Critical age." Raleigh's verses run in 
this wise : 

" If all the world and love were young, 
And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
These pretty pleasures might me move 
To live with thee and be thy love. 

" But time drives flocks from field to fold, 
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold ; 
And Philomel becometh dumb ; 
The rest complains of cares to come. 

" The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
To wayward winter reckoning yields : 
A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. 

" Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, 
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, 
In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 

" Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
Thy coral clasps and amber studs, 
All these in me no means can move 
To come to thee and be thy love. 

" But could youth last, and love still breed ; 
Had joys no date, nor age no need ; 
Then these delights my mind might move 
To live with thee and be thy love.'' 



HERO AND LEANDER. 177 



HERO AND LEANDER. 



137. The legend of Leander's swimming from Abydos to 
Sestos by night to visit Hero, and his death while attempting to 
cross during a winter storm, is perhaps " an old Milesian story," 
but its early literary history is mainly Roman. Probably the 
earliest extant mention of it is as late as Vergil, who {Georgics, iii. 
258-263) alludes to it as a well-known tale. He might have 
heard it from Parthenius, his supposed teacher in Greek, whose 
taste for such romantic stories is shown by the collection that he 
prepared for Gallus ; but it was probably generally familiar before 
his day. It occurs in a graceful little Greek epitaph {An- 
thology, vii. 666) by Antipater of Thessalonia, who lived in the 
Augustan era ; where the lamp that Hero was accustomed to show 
from her tower, and the tower itself, as well as the lovers' single 
tomb, are mentioned for the first time. In another Greek frag- 
ment no doubt later {Anthology, ix. 381), we find the story out- 
lined in the artificial form of a "cento" of Homeric clauses, 
which describes the heroine's anxious watch in her tower on a 
promontory by the broad Hellespont, the lamp, and the deep 
night and wild waves. The earliest important treatment of the 
subject is by Ovid, whose Heroides, xvii. and xviii,, make up a 
poem of over four hundred lines. The epistolary form prevented 
his introducing the pathetic conclusion, save by premonition. 
This manner of handling the theme is in his more studied early 
style. The lover complains of the stormy sea which prevents him 
from crossing — a situation in Dante's mind, when he mentions 
Leander in one of his loveliest passages {Purgatory, 28, 71-75). 
Hero is lovingly petulant at his failure to come, in spite of the 
storm. Touches of feeling may be found, but there is an air of 
rhetoric about them. The most pleasing passage is the descrip- 
tion of Hero talking with her old waiting-woman about Leander's 
coming — one of Ovid's vivacious studies of feminine moods ; too 
trivial, however, for the sentimental legend. The tower and 
lamp are only incidentally mentioned, greatly as these contribute 
to the picturesque beauty of the story, as was felt by Statius, who 
introduced them in his unimportant sketch of the legend ( Thebais, 
vi. 520), by Shakespeare, in " another Hero's tower," and indeed, 



17^ NOTES. 

by almost every poet who refers to these early lovers, whose 
"names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse." 
But it was left for Musseus, whose date appears to be late in the 
fifth century, and of whose life we learn only that he was a scholar 
by profession, to compose the great memorial of them. His 
poem consists of but 341 lines, yet its dignified construction 
justifies its designation as a "little epic." It appeared when 
poetry had for a long time fallen into decay ; yet though 
various marks of the late Hellenistic taste may be discerned, 
it still remains a worthy and lovely example of Greek poetry. 
The author writes of the lover's emotion without losing 
artistic moderation ; his sense of beauty is contented with calm 
and compressed statement; he introduces delicate minor effects 
that at first we may pass unobserved ; to his eye the tower, the 
lamp, the lovers' figures, the storm, are pictures. It is an ex- 
perience to come upon this poem of an era from which we expect 
little, and to find finished verse, a firm and elegant narrative, 
such happy pleadings of the love mastered by love without warn- 
ing, such delicate yielding hesitation as this maiden's, a story of 
love's bright consummation so happily recounted. After a brief 
three hundred lines, we reach the wintry night, through whose 
waves Leander struggled until his strength failed, and the wind at 
one moment extinguished the torch upon the tower and Leander's 
life and love. But Hero, gazing through the darkness, saw with 
the dawn her lover's body torn by the rocks at the foot of the 
tower, and "threw herself down and lay dead over her dead 
spouse," 

" And each won other in the worst of death." 

It is the old fashion of writing, where the poet does not press 
his reader with details, or play schoolmaster to his imagination. 
The poem has found several modern translators, including such dis- 
tinguished poets as Clement Marot (whose version, dated 1541, fol- 
lows close to the text, but quite misses the serious dignity of the 
Greek style) and George Chapman. The latter, who in his preface 
(1616) calls his original "the incomparable love-poem of the 
world," also makes a faithful transcript, barring occasional Chap- 
man caprices, but his style and verse are too forcible to represent 



HERO AND LEANDER. 179 

the elegance of Musaeus. It was the privilege of Marlowe to 
compose a new Hero and Leander, a romance in couplets splen- 
didly rhyming, even overcharged with sensation, poetic buoyancy, 
and imagination. Notwithstanding its nine hundred lines, it is 
but a fragment ; the narrative breaks off when it has first reached 
the lovers' union. The words "translation" and "paraphrase" 
that have been applied to it, in relation to Musseus, are equally 
incorrect. Marlowe, in a manner, follows the Greek poet's treat- 
ment, as he also echoes Ovid, but his thoughts, images, arid 
romantic inspirations are independent. After his death, Chapman 
divided the uncompleted poem into two " Sestiads," and added 
four of his own ; this work was published some years before his 
translation appeared. In reading tbese extracts, attention should 
be paid to Marlowe's remarkable management of the rhyming 
couplet. 

137 : 1. A reference to the myth of the drowning of Helle. 

137:22. The author of this " tragedy" was supposed, by 
Renaissance students, to be the legendary poet of ancient Greece, 
nearly contemporary with Orpheus. So thought even Julius 
Scaliger, and more than twenty years after Marlowe's death 
Chapman quoted, without discrediting it, the familiar identifica- 
tion of the author with Vergil's famous reference to " Musaeum 
ante omnes." 

138:45. Narcissus. 

139 : 64. Discolour d = of various colors. 
J 39 : 73- Vaitd = bent. 

I 39*75- The arrow that caused love, instead of the leaden 
one. (Ovid, Met. 1. 470.) 
*39 * 83. Course = race. 

140 : 90. Quoted by Shakespeare in Phoebe's speech. (As You 
Like It, III., 5, 82.) 

" Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? " 

Where the " Dead shepherd" at last seems to suggest feeling 
for Marlowe's memory, beneath the formal address of the pastoral. 
140 : 103. i. e., in the darkness of the lower world. 



EitGlisb IReabings for Students, 

This collection is planned to supply English master- 
pieces in editions at once competently edited and inex- 
pensive. The aim will be to fill vacancies now existing 
because of subject, treatment, or price. The volumes 
will be of convenient size and serviceably bound. 

Coleridge : Prose Extracts. 

Selections chosen and edited with introduction and notes by Henry 
A. Beers, Professor in Yale College, xxix + 148 pp. i6mo. 
Boards. Teachers' price, 30 cents ; postage 4 cents additional. 

The selections, varying in length from a paragraph to 
ten or twenty pages, will be mainly from Table Talk and 
Biographia Literaria, but also in part from The Frie?id, 
Notes on Shakspeare, and other writings. They have 
been chosen, so far as may be, to illustrate the range and 
variety of Coleridge's thought, and, to emphasize this 
purpose, have been grouped by subjects. The introduc- 
tion briefly summarizes the author's intellectual position 
and influence. 

De Quincey : Joan of Arc and The English Mail 
Coach. 

Edited with an introduction and notes by James Morgan Hart, 
Professor in Cornell University, xxvi + 138 pp. i6mo. Boards. 
Teachers' price, 30 cents ; postage 4 cents additional. 

These essays have been chosen as fairly representative 
of the two most notable phases of the author's work, and 
as at the same time attractive to the novice in literary 
study. The introduction sketches the leading facts of 
De Quincey's life, and indicates some of the prominent 

1 



English fadings for Students. 



features of his style. Allusions and other points of un- 
usual difficulty are explained in the notes. This volume 
and the one containing the Essays on BosweWs Johnson 
(see below) are used at Cornell University as foundation 
for elementary rhetorical study. 

Dryden : Select Plays. 

Edited with a brief introduction and notes by James W. Bright, 
Assistant Professor in the Johns Hopkins University. About ioo 
pp. i2mo. [In preparation .] 

Aside from their representing the principal literary ac- 
tivity, in point of quantity, of one of the foremost English 
writers, Dryden's plays have a peculiar interest in having 
been among the first to be played upon the reopening of 
the theatres under Charles II. 

Goldsmith : Present State of Polite Learning. 

Edited with introduction and notes by J. M. Hart, Professor in 
Cornell University. About ioo pp. i6mo. [In preparation.'] 

There are many reasons, some of them obvious, for 
giving this essay a place in the English Readings series. 
One that may be mentioned is the remarkably clear 
insight it affords into the entire eighteenth-century way 
of criticising. The introduction and notes will direct 
the student's attention along this line of observation. 

Lyly : Endimion. 

With introduction and notes by George P. Baker, Instructor in 
Harvard College. About ioo pp. i6mo. [Ready soon.] 

Lyly's plays really show him to a better advantage than 
does the Euphues, by which he is chiefly remembered, 
and his place in English dramatic history makes it de- 
sirable that one at least should be easily accessible. 



English fadings for Students. 



Macaulay and Carlyle : Croker's Boswell's John- 
son. 

The complete essays, with brief notes and an introduction by James 
Morgan Hart, Professor in Cornell University. A preliminary 
edition, without notes, is now supplied. 93 pp. 121110. Boards. 
Teachers' price, 30 cents ; postage 4 cents additional. 

These parallel treatments of Croker's editing, and of 
the characters of Boswell and Dr. Johnson, afford an 
unusual opportunity for comparative study. The two 
essays present a constant contrast in intellectual and 
moral methods of criticism which cannot fail to turn the 
attention of students to important principles of biographi- 
cal writing, while equally important principles of diction 
are impressively illustrated in the two strongly marked 
styles. The essays also offer an excellent introduction 
to the study of the literary history of Johnson's times. 

Marlowe : Edward II. With the best passages from 
Tamburlaine the Great, and from his Poems. 

With brief notes and an introductory essay by Edward T. Mc- 
Laughlin, Professor in Yale College. 

Aside from the intrinsic value of Edward II, as Mar- 
lowe's most important work, the play is of great interest 
in connection with Shakespere. The earlier chronicle 
drama was in Shakespere's memory as he was writing 
Richard II, as various passages prove, and a comparison 
of the two plays (sketched in the introduction) affords 
basis for a study in the development of the Elizabethan 
drama. Since Tamburlaine has really no plot and 
character-development, extracts that illustrate its poeti- 
cal quality lose nothing for lack of a context. The 
unobjectionable beginning of Hero and Leander is per- 
haps the finest narrative verse of the sixteenth century. 



English Tradings for Students. 



Specimens of Argumentation. I. Classic. 

Chosen and edited by George P. Baker, Instructor in English 
in Harvard College, and Non-resident Lecturer on Argumentative 
Composition in Wellesley College. \In preparation.] 

Specimens of Argumentation. II. Modern. 

Chosen and edited by George P. Baker. i6mo. 186 pp. 
Boards. [In press.] 

This compilation includes Lord Chatham's speech on 
the withdrawal of troops from Boston, Lord Mansfield's 
argument in the Evans case, the first letter of Junius, 
the first of Huxley's American addresses on evolution, 
Erskine's defence of Lord George Gordon, and an ad- 
dress of Beecher's in Liverpool during the cotton riots. 
The choice and editing has been controlled by the needs 
of the courses in " Forensics" in Harvard College. The 
earlier selections offer excellent material for practice in 
drawing briefs, a type of such a brief being given in the 
volume. The notes aim to point out the conditions 
under which each argument was made, the difficulties to 
be overcome, and wherein the power of the argument 
lies. It is thought that the collection, as a whole, will 
be found to contain available illustrations of all the main 
principles of argumentation, including the handling of 
evidence, persuasion, and scientific exposition. 

HENRY HOLT & CO., Publishers, New York. 



88 






•:?:»;« ,* 




















*£»■ -^ «*^vv Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 




Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies x 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



r 



. *°o J** 'life. % 0° -^S^. °^ ./ . 







i1 
















•^o« 





***** * J 







W 










* v . 



1 1 BOOKBINDING 
HI] Crantv.lle. Pa 
Jan Feb 1989 

W« re Quj/rH Bound 







"W 



r oV 



